


The House On The Corner

by Weesner_Olivia95



Category: Horror of Dracula (1958), IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-09-14 13:49:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 23,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9184477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weesner_Olivia95/pseuds/Weesner_Olivia95
Summary: Carter has moved into a new house in a new town. He's not one to really make friends, but when strange things start happening in his house, he is forced to turn to someone for help. Will they be able to fend off this evil? Keep reading to find out.





	1. Chapter 1

There were boxes everywhere. But he was used to it. If he ever needed something, it was right at his finger tips. Need a book for class? Probably in the box over there. Can’t find any clean clothes? Most likely in the box. Need a knife or fork? Also in a box. His family lived out of boxes. Constant boxes. Some were brand new and still had the manufacturer’s label on them. Others were old and being held together with tape. Some even had damp wet marks on them. He knew that he would never unpack the boxes, and so did his family. They would keep their lives boarded up in those boxes until the end of time.

 

Chapter One  
This wasn’t the first time. Nor was it the second, third or fourth time. Carter had probably moved upwards of fifteen times in his live but he was okay with that. When both parents were part of the marines, you went wherever they told you to go, even if it was out in the middle of nowhere.  
        It wasn’t really nowhere, more like the rainiest, darkest, dampest part of the west coast the marines could find. Carter and his family had moved to Washington state, but southern Washington. Far enough from every possible major city, but still considered to be a “city”. Carter thought that was bullshit. How could this place be considered a city? It barely had its own school system and police force. It was a joke of a town.  
        Carter was loading a few boxes from the back of his wagon and was simply tossing them in the closest room to the front door. He guessed he could label it “the office”, but he knew very well that those boxes would stay there until someone realized that they needed what was inside. His parents weren’t around to help him unload the rest of the boxes because they were called to the base. He was okay with it; he liked moving the boxes when his parents weren’t around. It meant he could put them wherever he wanted to.  
The house wasn’t brand new, but it wasn’t old either. Because they had to move around constantly, his family didn’t have a lot of money. The house was only one story, but that meant that moving the boxes was easier because there was no staircase to climb. The entrance of the house lead to a long hallway that touched the back wall of the house. To the left of the front door was the dining room and kitchen, to the right the office and the living room. Down the hallway were the bedrooms, the master bedroom on the left and the two extra bedrooms on the right and then a bathroom at the very end.  
He threaded his earbuds through the underside of his tank top and up through the neck so that he could listen to music while he unloaded the boxes. He wasn’t quite accustomed to the weather in Washington yet, and coming from Georgia, where it was hot year round, all of his longer gear was packed away. He made a mental note to try and find the box that those were in.  
Walking from the car to the house and back again gave Carter a sense of peace, mainly because he didn’t have to think about anything, he could just work. While he was working a slight drizzle started, which struck him as odd, it being late August. The house his family moved into was on a fairly populated street, foot traffic wise. He guessed that there were a lot of fitness nuts in this area. Looking around through the rain, Carter realized that none of the pedestrians used umbrellas while trudging through the rain. Most of them just scrunched their faces and kept their heads down. With their eyes looking at their shoes and the rain splattering them, Carter thought they all looked like zombies; sad, emotionless zombies that were just trying to figure out what to do with their undead lives.  
A chill ran through Carter, giving him goose bumps, but then he went back to unloading the boxes, ignoring the feeling that something was wrong. The something was off, or that something was watching him.  
       


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two  
        That night, over a large pepperoni pizza from a place called Silver Dollar Pizza, Carter scrolled through the internet on his mac. It was around seven at night and his parents weren’t home yet, which wasn’t too abnormal. He hadn’t managed to put the dining room table together like his mother had asked, but he did get the WIFI and the TV set up. He even considered unpacking miscellaneous boxes, some containing family photo albums and holiday photos, but ultimately decided to leave them on the floor of the office, and he’d get around to them later.  
Carter was sitting on the floor in the dining room, his back up against the wall, a huge window just above him that looked out over the street they now lived on. This was the only place he could find that didn’t get a glare from the headlights of the cars that drove past.  
        He crouched down a little lower, and placed the pizza box on his stomach to allow maximum food consumption. Glancing down to at his stomach, he noticed a small pouch that had started to form. Carter smiled slightly and patted it softly and said “Atta boy” then went back to scrolling the internet.  
        He had tried to find out something interesting about the town that he lived in, but so far the most interesting thing that was near Vancouver was Portland. Carter rolled his eyes and closed his computer. Out of all the places that he had lived this was probably the most uninteresting place ever. He stood up and stretched, wiping some pizza crumbs from his shirt. Walking from one room to the other, Carter took this chance to study the house where he lived now, and silently mused at the thought of how long his parents would stay here this time.  
        He stretched one more time and started to randomly throw some boxing punches into the air, thinking back to his pseudo-boxing days. He shuffled forward, and then back, shadowboxing his enemy. He threw jab after jab, scooting left and then right before landing a hook in the air. Carter shadowboxed from one room to the other, not bothering to turn any lights on as he went. He could see well enough to know that he wouldn’t hit any of the walls, and he had put all of the boxes in one room.  
        Bobbing from one side to the other, he dodged his opponent’s punches, never letting a single one land. Soon, he began his own onslaught of jabs, hooks, and uppercuts, getting deeper and deeper into the house. When he reached the last room of the house, Carter was pumped up and had the Rocky theme song playing in his head. He faced the door to the last bedroom and opened it quickly, then began shadowboxing in that room. Spinning and ducking and jabbing, he began narrating his own match.  
        “He dodges the right hook, and the jab! What an amazing boxer! Never have I seen someone who was so light on their feet! What a spectacle!” He began bobbing and weaving around an imaginary competitor. This room was darker than the rest, but the window in the room provided enough light for him to see the walls.  
        “Time for the final round! Let’s see how Kashmir does against this fighter!” Carter began a flurry of fast jabs and punches and hooks, relishing in the faux announcer saying his last name. First a left, then a right, and then a left again. A few jabs in the air and a straight. He began to sweat and could feel his heartbeat in his ears.  
        “Only a few seconds left in the round folks! Who will be this year’s champion??” He could almost hear the crowd cheering in his mind. He could see the count down on the electric clock above the ring. Only ten second left. Carter timed the punches with the ticking of the seconds. Sweat was now dripping into his eyes and was causing his hair to stick to his forehead.  
        With only three seconds left on the imaginary clock, Carter threw a perfect combination of punches.  
        “Three!” He threw a jab in his opponent’s face.  
        “Two!” Carter gave him a left hook, to pull his fake enemy closer.  
        “One!” With the last count, Carter executed a right upper-cut, and made direct contact with his opponent. Carter stopped dead in the darkness of the room, his breath coming out short and quick, not only from the slight workout he just did, but because he had made contact with something. He had hit something that was in the room with him. His heart beat was hammering in his ears. The room was too dark to make out any real objects, but Carter could see the door that lead to the hallway. There was a light on outside, the one that he had left on, but that was it. He glanced around the room for the light switch but was unable to move, fear keeping him in his spot. Moving his eyes around the room, he realized that there was no light switch. To turn on the light, he had to stand in the middle of the room and pull on a chain that was in the ceiling. The ceilings were also about 9 feet high in this house. Carter could feel himself get goose bumps once again and forced himself to mentally count down. On the count of three, he would jump and try and get the light to turn on.  
        One. He felt the room get colder and colder. He was almost shivering.  
        Two. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists. He could feel something coming up behind him. Almost touching him. The hair on the back of his neck was sticking up.  
        “That wasn’t very nice.”  
At the sound of that voice, Carter jumped and grabbed onto the chain that hung from the ceiling and yanked on it so hard that the chain broke off from the light, but the room suddenly became illuminated.  
        Carter looked around feverishly, trying to find the thing that had spoken to him, the thing he had touched just moments earlier. But the room was empty, there was nothing in there but a few spider webs and himself. Squeezing the chain in his hand, Carter tried to calm his breathing. He knew that he had touched something, that he had heard something.  
        Allowing a shiver to run through his whole body, Carter opened the door to the room, and stood in the hallway. Looking back inside, he checked just one last time. The room was empty, totally and completely. Shaking his head, he threw the old chain back onto the carpet of the room. He’d get around to fixing that light, but until then, the light would just have to stay on. Carter closed the door and began walking down the hallway, but stopped half way and turned back around to look at the closed door. The light was still shining through the bottom. Carter stared at it, again assuring himself the room was empty, and watched it flick off on its own.  
       


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three  
        The next morning was Saturday, which usually meant a day of doing nothing and relaxing with the family. But, on this Saturday, Carter’s parents were up and in action around eight in the morning. Carter woke up to the sound of footsteps and shuffling boxes. He opened the door of his bedroom, barely looking at the spare room, and walked down the long hallway to the kitchen and dining room.  
        Both of his parents were dressed and were sorting through different boxes and actually putting items away. His father sat hunched over a box while is mother was organizing the items that he handed to her. Carter watched from the doorway, an expression of slight shock and wonder on his face.  
        “Oh, hi honey!” his mother greeted him, “Did we wake you?”  
        “Uh, no, well… yeah, actually. What are you guys doing?”  
        “Well,” his father responded, standing up, “we’re unpacking the boxes. What does it look like?”  
        “No, I know you are unpacking the boxes, but why? You’ve never done this before when we moved.”  
        Carter’s parents looked at each other and smiled.  
        “We were going to surprise you with this but, I guess now works.” His father smiled widely, too wide for Carters liking. It was weird to see his dad, a Chief, to smile so unabashedly like that.  
        “This is our permanent home! After sixteen years in the Marines, we’ve put in a request to stay here, forever!” Carter’s mother exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air.  
        It took a few moments for Carter to realize what his parents had just told him. He would not be moving again. This is where they would be living, from now on. In this tiny little town, in this dreary ass weather, in this subpar house, with the (thing there was a thing I heard it it spoke to me) empty guest room. Carter felt a chill run down his back. He silently prayed that last night had been a dream, a moment of delirium from moving too many boxes.  
        “Hey, you okay?” His mother approached him tentatively. “You look awful.”  
        “Well gee thanks, Mom, you look wonderful too.” Carter pulled himself back to the moment. He didn’t want his parents to think he was losing his mind, not when they were just starting to put down roots.  
        “I guess,” he said looking around the room, “we better get to unpacking all this shit then, huh?” Both of his parents grinned and nodded emphatically.  
        All three of them spent the next few hours going through and unpacking box after box after box of stuff. In the first few hours, they managed to unpack the kitchen, the dining room, and the master bedroom, having focused first on the essentials. Next, they worked their way through the boxes labeled “Living room” and “other”. These “other” boxes, however, drastically reduced their pace. The years of moving so suddenly, so often, had seen that these boxes had never been unpacked. It was like Christmas in August.  
        There were baby pictures of Carter, and honeymoon photos of his parents. Wedding pictures, pictures of grandparents holding a small bundle of a baby. Even Carter’s baby book and old school pictures, when he went to school.  
        Since the age of about 11, Carter had done online schooling, because his parents never managed to stay within the same state for very long, much less school district. Carter didn’t mind it too much though, in fact he liked the online school. It was easy to grasp the information and he could do a whole week’s worth of homework in one day if he really needed too. He also got the chance to talk to other military kids that used the program. The website that he used told him every year around June or July what grade he had just completed, and at the age of seventeen, he had officially graduated high school.  
        He felt pretty proud that he managed to graduate a year ahead of all of the other kids his age, it made him feel smarter than then, but not better. He liked learning, it gave him a sense of escape, and also something to do when his parents were away, or when they were on long trips to a new house.  
        In one of the boxes was a printed “graduation” certificate from his second grade teacher. It had his name in big, cursive letters on it and his school picture as well, all gap-toothed and happy.  
        “I’m excited to start getting these again,” his mother noted, grinning at the young photo.  
        “Start getting what again? Fake graduation announcements?” Carter said.  
        “No, honey, school pictures!” His mom playfully punched his arm.  
        “Uh, well Mom, I’ve already graduated so there won’t be any school pictures. I don’t think they do those in college.” He crossed his arms and looked at his parents proudly. They both shared a look with each other that gave Carter a sense of dread.  
        “Well,” started his father. “It seems that not all of the online courses transfer over to actual high school credits. And it seems that to get into a university here, you have to have a legitimate certificate of graduation through an actual high school.”  
        Carter let his arms fall. He didn’t quite understand what his dad was saying to him. He had to take more online classes to make up for the ones that he missed?  
        “So,” he started out, “more online classes then?”  
        “No,” his mom spoke, “no more online classes. We’ll need to enroll you in an actual high school it seems. No high schools will give a diploma to someone who hasn’t physically gone to the school.”  
        “Okay,” Carter said, thinking. “So, I go in halfway through the school year as a Senior and get the god-damned certificate then. Done! Everyone’s happy.”  
        “It doesn’t work like that.” his father replied. “You have to go there for a full two years before you are able to graduate.”  
        Carter’s face fell. A Junior? He would have to start his Junior year all over again? From scratch? But he was smarter than that, and his parents knew it too!  
        “We’ve decided on a private school, one that is very highly recommended. A lot of their graduates get into Ivy League schools, like Princeton and Yale.” His dad seemed excited at the prospect of his son going to such a highly sought after university. Since neither of his parents had ever gone to a university, it seemed only right to them that they should allow Carter the chance.  
        Carter stood in the living room, just staring at them. High school, he would actually have to start high school all over again. It took him a minute to grasp the reality of what was going to happen come September. Carter was angry, pissed even, but not at his parents, at himself. He thought he was so much smarter than every other kid his age, but it turned out that he was just the same. Just as dumb, just as ignorant, and just as under his parents’ control.  
        “Okay” was all he said to them. He was never one to get angry or show negative emotion to anyone. He kept those feelings inside and worked them out some other way, either through exercise or education. Learning something new when he was angry took his mind of off whatever was bothering him, much like running or boxing or lifting did.  
        Carter turned his back on his parents and began unpacking more boxes, this time with a renewed sense of getting it done. He didn’t want to look back at those old school memories any more.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four  
The school looked to be about the same size as his house. It was ridiculous, how could this be a high school? It was tiny. Carter had actually missed the turn in for the school twice while looking for it and now, as a result, he was late. Parking his Jetta in the student section and locking it, he looked at the front doors of the school. The whole building was painted dark blue over what looked to be a brick pattern. The main entrance was an archway, probably to keep the rain off of the students Carter thought.  
        He walked in and was immediately hit with the new school smell. It had been ages since he had smelled it. Going down the main hallway he slowed a bit, he wanted to take it all in. There were bulletin boards listing classes and little pseudo-Facebook profiles of the teachers that students could read. A glass case held all of the trophies and awards the schools sports teams had won over the years. At this, Carter stopped and looked through it.  
        It seemed that this school was best known for their track and chess teams. “Of course”, thought Carter. He scanned down the case looking at the different trophies and awards. In the very bottom corner of the case stood a single trophy with a single plaque behind it saying “Rally Squad”. The trophy showed a girl in a cheer leaders uniform with pompoms in her hands and one leg bent at the knee. The inscription below read “Third Runners Up in All State Competition”. “Wow,” he thought, “they put this thing in here? Why? It’s for fucking third place!”  
        Shaking his head, Carter moved away from the trophy case and wandered his way into the main office. There, he picked up a copy of his classes, his locker number, his combination, and a complimentary planner with the school’s mascot on the front. He nodded a thank you to the ladies in the office and headed to class. He was already late enough and didn’t want to cause too much of a scene.  
        Walking into the classroom, Carter was suddenly met with silence, from everyone, even the teacher. From their inquisitive stares and their quiet murmurs to each other it was clear that new students were rare. Carter guessed that every student in here had known each other since middle school or earlier. His best course of action would probably be to keep his head down and be quiet.  
        Handing his late slip to the equally confused teacher, Carter sat in the very front row, it was the only seat that wasn’t taken. He could feel the eyes of the other students boring into his back. He took a deep breath and tried to ignore them. It would be a long first day.  
         
        During lunch, because he didn’t feel like making new friends again, Carter put in his headphones and decided to take a walk around the campus, to see what the building had. It surprised him that there was actually much more to the school than he initially thought. There were over a hundred classrooms, a separate wing just for science classes and a brand new library wing made entirely out of glass windows.  
        Carter walked into the library and made a bee line for the back wall, which was one giant window. The ceiling had to be about fifteen feet high and even that was glass. Looking up, Carter noted a few solar panels that were scattered across the clear glass. Finding a circle of plush chairs, Carter sat down in one and leaned back to look up through the glass ceiling.  
        It was an amazing feeling, to just sit there and look straight up into the rain but not feel it. Carter felt as though he could reach up and grab the rain drops that he saw hitting the glass. He grabbed his iPod and changed his music so that it fit his mood. Beethoven’s seventh symphony greeted his ears, the trumpets starting their soft climb.  
        Relaxing back into the chair again, Carter looked back up at the ceiling. “This is way better than a cafeteria,” he thought. For a few minutes, he just watched the rain splatter on the ceiling. It was on an incline, so the rain drops built up more and more before finally breaking off into a sprint and running over the edge of the building, then the process started all over again.  
        Carter began to feel himself drift into sleep. He had been so nervous the night before that he hadn’t gotten much sleep. Most of his room was unpacked, but there were still enough boxes in his room so that it didn’t quite feel like home yet. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to be rocked to sleep by the intricate weavings of the instruments playing in his ears. He tried to hear every instrument and every note. He focused on the building of each sound, waiting for the crescendo in the melody, waiting for the chaos that would explode through the peacefulness of the song.  
        Suddenly, a piercing scream came through his headphones. Carter smacked the headphones off and watched them fall to the floor at his feet.  
        “Fuck!” He screamed. That noise, that terrible sound, the purely inhuman scream had just come through his headphones. It was unlike anything Carter had heard before. He couldn’t place it, but he knew that that sound wasn’t from any movie or tv show he had ever watched before. It was as if that scream was just for him, just for his ears.  
        Carter felt goose bumps raise on his arms and legs and was glad that he was wearing long sleeves for he didn’t want any one to notice. Pulling his eyes away from the headphones on the floor, he scanned the library, silently praying that no one had seen or heard him. He caught eyes with a girl who was sitting just across the circle from him, her eyebrow cocked in questioning.  
        She was sitting with her legs tucked under her in the chair, her brown hair pulled into a lazy pony tail, accentuating the roundness of her face. She had a hard bound book in her lap and a small bag of pretzel sticks. Carter noticed that some of the salt had stuck to the corner of her mouth.  
        “You good over there?” She asked.  
        Carter nodded quickly crossed his arms, trying to rub the remaining goose bumps away. He looked away from the girl and out one of the side windows of the library, hoping that the she would ignore his outburst.  
        “Hey,” the girl said after a moment. “Hey,” she said again after Carter didn’t reply. He turned to look at her. She was pointing at his headphones.  
        “You gonna pick those back up, or just leave them there?” She asked tilting her head. Carter quickly reached down and snatched the headphones up, not bothering to plug them back into his iPod. Wrapping the chord around the bottom of the headphones, he folded them and stuffed them into his backpack, not wanting to look at them again. He still felt uneasy about what had just happened, and the girl was now staring at him, almost as if she wanted him to say something.  
        Carter ignored her. He just kept staring out the window, timing fake races between the rain drops that slid down the window. He glanced at his watch; there was still twenty minutes left in the lunch hour. He had only fallen asleep for five minutes.  
        All of a sudden, he felt something hard hit his face and fall into his lap. Looking down, he saw it was a pretzel stick. He looked back at the girl, who was still staring at him.  
        “I don’t like being ignored” she said. She had closed her book and was readjusting her teal glasses, the horn rimmed frames taking up most of her face.  
        Carter just looked at her. He didn’t know what to say, so he just sat there. He wasn’t nervous about talking to girls, it had just been a long time since he had had a conversation with one, much less one his age.  
        “So, are you dumb or just stupid?” she asked.  
        “What? No.” Her blatant question had caught him off guard. “Neither.”     
        “I only ask ‘cause you look kind of… well, slow.” She paused for a second, waiting for Carter to catch on.  
        This took him by surprise; this random girl calling him dumb and slow.  
        “I’m not dumb, nor am I slow. I’m just new”  
        “Oh yeah, ‘cause that’s a good excuse” she said, placing another pretzel in her mouth.  
        Carter looked at her for a moment longer, then turned to look at the rain drops sliding down the window again.  
        A minute later, he felt another pretzel hit him again.  
        “Would you stop that?” he asked, getting perturbed.  
        “No. I’m bored.”  
        “Well, that’s great, I’m Carter. Now leave me alone.”  
        “This school is too small. We already have 3 classes together, homie” she said, starting to pack her things.  
        Did she really just call me “homie”? What the fuck?  
        Suddenly, the bell rang, and the girl was up out of her chair and out the door. The whole encounter left Carter slightly confused and off balance. Leaning down to zip up his backpack, he spied the headphones he had been wearing. Wishing to ignore them and what had happened, Carter shoved them down farther into his bag and went about the rest of the school day, the memory stuck in the back of his mind.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five  
        The rest of the day went on uneventfully, but Carter couldn’t get that scream out of his mind. He walked through the halls like a zombie; half there and half gone. He drove the whole way home in the same state. He parked his car and went right inside, throwing his keys and backpack on the dining room table. Going to the fridge for food, he opened it to find half of a box of week old pizza and half a stick of butter.  
        Grabbing the last two slices of the pizza, Carter headed to his room. He left the kitchen and headed for his door, but stopped dead at the end of the hall way, looking down the hall. There was a light on, but not in the spare room, but in his own room. Had he left it on this morning when he left? He had been in a rush to get to school. Carter couldn’t remember if he had or not, but he felt his pulse race and his breathing shudder.  
        He slowly made his way down the hall, careful to not make any sounds along the way. If there was something in in room again, he didn’t want to give it a warning that he was coming. Carter wanted to see this thing, confront it. His heart was beating against his sternum and a sweat was breaking out across his brow. As confident as he felt, he was equally terrified. He had never felt this level of anxiety of pure fear before in his life, not even in second grade when Zack Wayfield challenged him to a fight at lunch.  
        Carter was right outside the door and could hear shuffling noises from the other side of the door and could see the shadow of something moving coming from beneath it. He raised his had and wrapped it around the door knob, squeezing it tightly, trying to pull courage from his strength. Carter clenched his teeth and closed his eyes tightly, then threw the door open and let out a battle cry.  
        His mother shrieked and threw the lamp against the wall closest to Carter, as a defense mechanism. There was a moment when the two just stopped and looked at each other, both in a stunned stupor.  
        “Carter James Kashmir, what the fuck was that!?” His mother walked over and punched his arm, half playfully, half out of anger. She clutched her chest and bent over to pick up the shards of glass that had once been a light bulb.  
        “Oh fuck, I’m sorry Mom. I didn’t see the car in the driveway and I didn’t think you were home. I just saw a light on in my room and went into attack mode.” Carter knelt down next to his mother and started picking up some of the glass as well.  
        “Yeah, me too” his mom said. “And don’t swear like that”  
        “What the fuck? Why not? You’ve never told me not to before” Carter looked at his mother like she was crazy. The three of them had always sworn, it was a military thing.  
        “In this household,” said his mother, “we don’t say shit, piss, cock sucker, mother fucker or god damn. Got it?” Carter smiled at his mother. There it was. He loved it when she swore, because she was so small. Standing at attention, his mother only hit about his chest. She looked like she weighed about a buck twenty soaking wet, but was strong and could squat just as much as he could. She had shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes and a tan that lasted twelve months out of the year.  
        “Where is the car?” Carter asked. “It’s not in the drive way. I didn’t even know you were home.”  
        “Oh,” his mom responded, “I think that your dad took it to get the oil changed or something. But now that you’re home, would you mind driving me some where? I need to go to the realtor’s office and sign some extra paperwork.”  
        “Sure”. Carter and his mother picked up the rest of the broken glass and then headed out.  
        It was a wet day and so many of the other drivers were going five or ten miles under the speed limit.  
        “You would think they would know how to drive in the rain, considering how often it rains here” Carter said, remarking at the number of slowing cars.  
        “I am not in any rush” his mother said, slouching down in the passenger seat and pulling out her phone. Carter assumed that she was playing one of her word games with his dad. They were always playing some form of scrabble. One time, when they had owned the actual board game, Carter’s dad had won the game with a last minute victory and his mom had flipped the board over in angry.  
        Carter chuckled at the memory.  
        “What are you laughing at?” his mother asked.  
        “Nothing.”  
        “Okay. How was school? I’m sorry that we made you go back, but it’s for a good reason.”  
        “I know. It’s fine. School was fine. Nothing really interesting happened.” Carter suddenly went pale and could feel his hands start to get damp. He never did take those headphones out of his backpack, but he was just happy that they were out of the car.  
        “Really?” his mother pressed, “nothing interesting happened?”  
        “Well, the library is kind of cool” Carter said.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six  
Thirty minutes later, Carter and his mother arrived at the realtor’s office. They parked and walked up to the cold grey brick building. If the weather outside was dreary, the inside of the building was worse. The temperature inside was colder than outside and everyone inside looked as though they had never seen the sun. Carter could see his breath as he followed his mother down a long hallway, past desks of busy looking secretaries.  
        His mother walked right into an office and greeted their realtor, a woman in her mid forties with large overly gelled hair and a pants suit with built in shoulder pads. Carter sat down in one of the plush corduroy chairs and listen to his mother talk business with the realtor. Looking around her office, Carter noticed numerous plaques and awards in frames on the walls. He really didn’t understand what they meant, but could understand that this lady must be a good realtor.  
        “And the history of the house doesn’t bother you?” he heard her say. This caught his attention and he looked back at his mother and the woman in front of him.  
        “What history?” he asked. His mother looked at him with a face that said don’t you dare ask, but he asked anyway.  
        “What … history?” he asked again.  
        “Well,” the realtor said, glancing at his mother, then back to him, “The previous owners of the house left on … unnatural terms.”  
        “What kind of unnatural terms?” Carter asked, now more engaged.  
        “Well,” that realtor was obviously nervous and uncomfortable talking about it, but Carter wanted to know, he needed to know.  
        “The last owners were a family of four, the parents and two young children. It turns out, the older child, the boy, …” here the realtor paused to adjust her shoulder pads and fold and then unfold her hands. “the older sibling strangled the daughter in one of the bedrooms. With the chain from the light.”  
        Carter felt the blood escape from his face. His limbs felt too heavy for his body, goose bumps popped up all over his body, even on his face.  
        Carter suddenly felt cramped in the office space, he felt as though the awards on the walls were mocking him, taunting him. Carter stood up slowly, trying to gain his balance. He handed his mother the keys and simply said “I’m walking” and left the crowded office. He walked past the rows of secretaries, feeling all of their eyes on him.  
        Busting through the doors of the office building, he was smacked in the face with the cold, damp air. Breathing in the crisp air, Carter picked a direction and started walking. He needed to think about everything that the realtor said and everything that she didn’t say. Why would his mother keep this from him? He was an adult, he could handle these types of things.  
        Walking down the street, Carter felt a slight drizzle start and wished that he had grabbed the umbrella from the back seat of his car. Looking around at the other pedestrians, what few there were, none of them carried anything other than the jackets that they wore. They all walked with their heads down, braced against the rain. Some didn’t even have hoods or hats and just let the rain pelt them relentlessly. Zombies. All Carter could think of was that they looked like zombies.  
        He focused his attention back on the sound of his footsteps on the wet pavement and the thoughts that were circling his mind.  
        When did the family leave the house? When did the murder happen? Why did the murder happen? What kind of parents would let that happen? The only question that Carter didn’t have was where the murder happened. He was one hundred percent sure that the voice he had heard in the room was a children’s voice. The thing that he touched could have been a child, but he didn’t know for sure.  
        But the voice in the headphones.  
        That voice was not human, it was animalistic. There was no way that a human could have made that sound unless... Unless.  
        Carter stopped and leaned against the wall of a small coffee shop, under the covering that would keep him dry for a moment.  
        No human could have expressed that sound unless they were in an unimaginable amount of pain. He had only ever heard that sound once and he never wanted to think about that amount of pain ever again.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven  
Carter walked through the rain with an empty mind. Whenever a thought came to his head, he pushed it out, focusing only on the sound of his footsteps splashing through the md and the rainy side walk. He really didn’t know how long he had been walking, but when he looked up, he realized that he had, unknowingly, walked back to school.  
        Shrugging his shoulders, Carter walked around the back of the school building towards the track. He didn’t want to get himself any more turned around than he already was. He picked the far outer lane of the track and just walked. He felt as though he could have walked forever, if he hadn’t run into someone.  
        “Really dude?” she said. “Off all the places to take a stroll, you do it here?”  
        It took Carter a minute to figure out who was talking to him. The girl in front of him was wearing a muscle shirt cut far too deep and revealed her black Nike sports bra. She had matching black short shorts and pure white Nike sneakers. Her brown hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail and her glasses were smattered with tiny rain drops. Her teal, horn rimmed glasses.  
        “Pretzel girl…?” He asked.  
        “Wow, we spend one magic lunch together and that’s all you take away?”  
        Carter just stood there in shock. He hadn’t planned on talking to anyone for the rest of the day, and running in to her, here and now took him completely off guard.  
        “My name is Ollie, by the way.” She stuck out her hand, waiting for him to take it.  
        Carter looked at her, then at her out stretched hand, then back at her. Was this girl, this strange girl with horn rimmed glasses, really holding out her hand to him?  
        After an awkward moment or two, Carter reached out and grabbed her hand and shook it. Standing in the rain, shaking a girl with horn rimmed glasses’ hand was not how he expected he would be spending his Tuesday afternoon.  
        “Hey,” Carter heard, “you can stop holding my hand now” the girl said. He let go and let his hands fall down to his sides.  
        “What are you doing out here” he asked her.  
        “I’m practicing, duh.” Ollie made a gesture to her outfit, mainly the large cursive writing on the shirt. It read, in big neon letters, 2014 All State Cheerleading Champions. Carter was again slightly confused. The shirt said cheerleader, but Ollie looked like she would rather be at home, swaddled in blankets reading a good book with a cup of hot tea next to her. To Carter, she didn’t even look the part of a cheerleader. She was chubbier than the other cheerleaders he had seen. Well, the cheerleaders that he had seen in the movies, that is.  
        “I wouldn’t peg you for a cheerleader” Carter responded.  
        “Yeah, most people don’t. I’m not really a ‘peppy’ person. But it’s a good work out.”  
        “Ha, a workout?” Carter couldn’t believe his ears. “This is not a workout.” To Carter, a workout meant lifting weights and running miles and doing push ups, things that his dad and he did every Saturday.  
        “Not a workout?” Ollie questioned, “sit in those stands and watch what we do. I don’t think you quite understand.”  
        Ollie walked towards a group of about 14 other girls who were all grouped together clumps of four. Carter hiked up to the stands and sat in the first row of covered seats, far back enough that he could see the whole team but close enough that he could hear them talking.  
        All at once, the chattering of girls ended and every one was standing at attention. Some were facing sideways though and others were standing far too close to each other. With another sudden count off, there were girls being thrown in the air. They were doing flips and kicks and Carter could hear girls grunting from the effort of lifting and throwing each other. Carter looked around to find Ollie, to see where she was. Carter scanned the girls in the air, but all of them were too small and fragile to be her, they all looked like birds.  
        Soon, Carter heard her voice, yelling at the other girls. She sounded like a drill sergeant, counting numbers over and over, keeping time with the girls and throwing and catching girls as well.  
        Carter watched for what seemed like only a few minutes, but soon the girls were huddling and giving high fives and leaving. Carter walked down the stand and approached Ollie, who was unlacing her shoes and changing her socks.  
        “That was crazy! What was all of that?”  
        “Wanna try and tell me that cheerleading isn’t a work out?” Ollie stood up and on a pair of sandals, slinging her back over her shoulder and taking out her car keys.  
        “No, that was awesome” Carter replied.  
        “You should see us during a football game, that’s where we really shine. Well, the other girls shine, I’m just there to yell at them.” Ollie gave a sly smile and shrugged one shoulder.  
        “Yeah,” Carter said, “you sounded like a fucking drill sergeant out there!” Ollie paused and looked at him and only then Carter realized that he had sworn.  
        “Oh, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cuss. Both of my parents have foul mouths and so that’s where I get it.”  
        “Hey,” Ollie responded, “It ain’t no thing.”  
        As they talked, Carter instinctively followed Ollie over to her jeep.  
        “Dang, I like your car. I wish I had one of these.” Carter had always wanted a jeep. He like the adventurousness behind it and the fact that in a jeep, you could feel completely free. And Ollie’s car was the kind that had the plastic zip windows that Carter liked.  
        “Oh man,” Carter exclaimed, examining the car. “You have such an awesome car!”  
        “Oh, yeah, I think Dolly does okay. She’s been my gal since last year.”  
        “Dolly? You named you car Dolly?”  
        “Yeah. Why not? Don’t you name your cars?” Ollie asked, opening the driver door and throwing her bag into the back.  
        “Ha ha, yeah, but my jetta’s name is Duke. He’s an old surly car. But he gets the job done.”  
        “Ha, Duke, that seems fitting.” Ollie hopped into the driver seat and was about to close the door.  
        “Is your car here?” she asked.  
        “Oh, uh… no. I walked here.” Carter replied, realizing that he has given his mom the keys.  
        “Well,” Ollie said, “get in then.” She motioned for him to get into the passenger seat.  
        “Oh, um,” Carter said nervously. He didn’t want to inconvenience her at all. “My mom says that I’m not supposed to get into cars with strangers.”  
        “Oh for fucks sake, you know my name and we go to school together.”  
        “Okay, that makes sense.” Carter walked around the car and jumped into the passenger seat. As he was buckling, Ollie turned to him and said “you know, I don’t even know what you name is. So technically, I’m allowing a stranger to get into my car.”  
        “Ha ha, my name is Carter.”  
        “Well, it’s nice to meet you Carter” and once again, Ollie held out her hand for him to shake.  
       


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight  
On the drive back to his house, he and Ollie talked about school and what classes they had together and what the history homework was. They both agreed that history was fun and interesting, but that the teacher was the exact opposite.  
        As Ollie pulled up to his house, she looked around him to gaze at the front door.  
        “Your family bought this house?” she asked, still gawking at the green front door.  
        “Yeah” Carter said, looking along with her.  
        “You know that somebody like, died here right?” Ollie asked.  
        “Yeah, I found out today actually.” Carter looked from the house back to Ollie, expecting her to be slightly terrified. Instead, she had a look of what Carter would call eagerness.  
        “Have you seen anything weird yet?” she asked. Carter could tell that she was interested in the house. Very interested.  
        “No,” he responded curtly. He knew that Ollie wanted to hear about ghosts and what not, but with the recent information he had about the history of the house and what he had already experienced, he didn’t want to let on about anything.  
        “Oh…” she seemed disappointed. “Well, want to get together some time and work through that history textbook?”  
        “Sure. Just call me and let me know” Carter pulled out a sticky note and a pen from Ollie’s glove box, why she had them there he didn’t know. He quickly wrote down his home phone number.  
        “Call you? Why don’t I just text you?” Ollie asked.  
        “Oh, I don’t have a cell phone. My family has only ever used a land line. It’s easier to cancel and cheaper to install then getting a cell phones for all three of us.”  
        “Okay…” Carter could see that Ollie was judging him, but he had gotten that before and he was used to it.  
        “Okay, well, I’ll call your home phone about when to get together, sound like a plan?”  
        “Perfect. I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”  
        “Later, Captain.” Ollie waved as Carter closed the door and stayed parked until he got to the front door. Feeling that she was still there, Carter opened the door a crack and then turned around to wave. Seeing that he was able to get inside, Ollie waved once more and then drove off.  
        She waited for me to get inside, Carter thought to himself. She waited to make sure I was safe.  
        As he walked in and closed the door, the thought just kept circling his head. She had waited for him. Is that what most teenagers do? Is this what having an actual physical friend felt like?  
        Removing his soaking wet sneakers, Carter held them by the heels and walked over to the laundry closed down the hall and threw them in the dryer.  
        Walking back towards the front door and right into the kitchen, Carter saw that his keys were on the counter, which meant that his mom was home. She probably parked in the garage, which is why he didn’t see his car when Ollie dropped him off.  
        And waited he thought again. Pulling the fridge open and taking out the blackberry jam and the bread, Carter began to make a snack. Getting the peanut butter from the cupboard, he threw the ingredients together and grabbed the half gallon of milk from the door of the fridge.  
        Carter turned off the light in the kitchen, and the whole house went dark. He hadn’t realized that it was so dark outside. Feeling his way into the hall, he flicked on the single light in the hallway.  
        The way that the light was fixed into the ceiling made the circles of light kind of repeat echo down the hallway, giving the yellowish wall paper a distant and detached feeling. Carter immediately got queasy.  
        “Mom?” he called down the hallway. “Mom, are you home?” But he got no reply.  
        Taking a few steps down the hall, he looked for a light underneath his parents’ bedroom door, but there was nothing. Continuing down the hall, Carter called out once again, this time getting closer and closer to his parents’ door.  
        “Dad? Are you home?” Nothing came. It didn’t make sense, his car keys were here, so his mom had to have come home. But his dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway either, so maybe they went somewhere together?  
        Carter crept slowly down the hallway, now keeping an eye on the door of the spare bedroom, silently praying that nothing happened. As long as he got to his room just fine, he would be safe. He slinked along the opposite wall, so that he could have a clear line of sight to the guest room. As he got closer and closer, the hallway got narrower and narrower, or so it felt.  
        When he was directly across from his closed bedroom door, Carter felt his heart pounding in his chest. The scream from earlier echoed over and over in his head. Without a second thought, Carter pushed himself off of the wall and barreled into his room, slamming the door behind him. He leaned against the door and let out a huge breath, relieved that nothing happened. Feeling more confident, he opened his eyes to look straight into another pair if cold, piercing blue eyes.  
        “I’m glad you’re home, Carter. I’ve been waiting for you to play with me all day.”  
        Carter let out a scream and the room went black.  
        Carter woke up to his mother voice saying his name over and over again. Opening his eyes, he picked him head up off of his desk and squinted into her face.  
        “Carter, what the fuck?” she asked, only slightly concerned.  
        “What?”  
        “Carter James, why do you have the entire half gallon of milk in your room?” his mother asked, picking up the empty carton and waving it in the air.   “Now I have to go back to the store and get more.”  
        “Oh, uh, sorry, mom. I didn’t realize I drank it all” in fact, he didn’t even remember sitting down at his desk.  
        “Next time just write it on the grocery list before you use the last of something. And wipe the jelly off of your face before it gets everything else all sticky.” His mom walked out of his room, leaving Carter confused, with an aching back and a sticky face. He sat up and cracked his back, listening to the vertebrae snap in consecutive succession. Tilting his head left and right, he also managed to crack his neck, which it only happened when he had been laying down for more than 3 hours.  
        He looked at his watch, the time read almost eight o’clock at night. He guessed that Ollie had dropped him off around 3, which meant that he had been asleep for a while. But he hardly ever took naps, ever.  
        Thinking back to what happened after he got home, Carter suddenly remembered the piercing eyes and the childish voice asking to play. After that, he couldn’t remember anything. Carter stood up from his desk and made his way to the bathroom at the end of the hall, taking care not to look at the spare room.  
        Turning on the light in the bathroom, Carter noticed the jelly that his mom had been talking about. It had somehow smeared across the side of his face and up into his hairline by his temple. Getting closer to the mirror and examining the jelly, Carter noticed that it had dried so much that it was actually cracking. Taking the hand towel from beside the sink, he dampened it and began scrubbing the dark red grime from his face.  
        I can’t believe I got jelly all over my face, Carter thought to himself. Of all of the places. I don’t even remember putting this much blackberry jam on that sandwich. Ask he scrubbed, Carter began to get a hint of another smell. Something that was copperier and metallic than the jelly. Pausing from washing his face, he looked around the bathroom, thinking that his father could have left some kind of cleaning solution out. At finding nothing, he looked back at the mirror and realized the the damp jelly spots on his face now resembled a brighter red.     
        Carter gingerly touched the wet red spots on his face then at his fingers. This wasn’t blackberry jelly as his mother had initially thought. This was blood and Carter was one hundred percent sure of it. Out of panic and terror, Carter turned the sink on full blast and began throwing water on his face and into his hair, wanting to get any and all blood off of himself.  
        After a vigorous amount of scrubbing and splashing, Carter could see no more blood on his face. Taking a deep breath in and drying up whatever water he spilled outside of the sink, he turned off the bathroom light and went back into his room, closing the door behind him.   
        Carter then searched his entire room; under the bed, behind the curtains, outside the windows, in his closet and even under his desk, but there was no sign of the boy with piercing eyes. He sat slowing down at his desk and tried to compose his thinking. Had there even been a boy there? Why couldn’t he remember anything after that moment? What had happened? Where did the blood come from? Carter let his head fall into his hands and massaged his temples. Everything was too confusing to focus on right now.  
        Cracking the door to his bedroom, Carter sat back at his desk and opened up his computer and logged into his email. There was a new email from Ollie. I wonder how she got my email, Carter wondered.  
        Opening the email, Carter read that Ollie found out his email from the class registry and decided to email instead of calling his home phone. She also went on to talk about getting together again about the history homework. She ended the email by inviting Carter to the first football game of the season on Friday.  
        Grinning, Carter quickly wrote back saying that he would be at the game and that they should get together in between school and the game that Friday to go over the homework. Just as he was about to press send, Carter wrote one last message to Ollie and send the email. Leaning back in his chair, Carter started biting his lip, hoping the she was online almost needing her to be.           
        After about five minutes, another email came across his laptop screen. Ollie was online and was willing to answer some questions he had. Opening up a chat box, Carter quickly typed his questions.  
          
Carter K: So, what’s the deal with this house?  
Ollie C: Well, you know some kid got murdered in there right??  
          
Carter K: yeah, found that out today from the woman who sold my parents the house.  
          
Ollie C: Okay, well, it was pretty gruesome, or so I’ve heard.  
Carter K: Gruesome? How so??  
Ollie C: You really want to know? Like, really really?  
          
Carter K: Yes.  
        Carter watched as the computer said that Ollie was typing, and typing, and typing. After 2 minutes, she was still typing. Carter couldn’t stand to just sit there and watch, so he got up and walked about his room, folding and unfolding his arms until his computer dinged, alerting him that she had finally sent him something.

Ollie C: Okay. So, the story goes that in the 90’s or something that a family of four or so bought the house and lived there for a few years before the murder happened. They weren’t special or anything, really normal people or so. They had two kids, a boy and a girl, Trevor and Lily, super chill with nothing out of the ordinary about them. Any ways, after about two years of living there, the parents both started to notice something weird about the son, Trevor. He would come home from school with drawings of creepy stick figure guys and would wake up in the middle of the night and just be found standing over his sister, or the cat or even his parents. At first, the parents just thought it was sleep walking from the stress of school, so they put him on some sleeping pills, but the sleepwalking continued. So, the doctors kept upping the strength until Trevor was essentially in a coma every time that he went to bed, but the pills work and Trevor stops sleepwalking. Until one night, out of the blue, the parents hear him get up and walk into Lily’s room. When they tried to get in, the door is locked from the inside. But, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, none of the doors had locks on them at all. So, the dad finally has to break down the door and finds Lily with the light chain around her neck and Trevor sleeping like a baby with one end of the chain in his hand. And there you have it, the story of your murder house.

Carter paused for a second. That was it? He thought. No blood, no gore, no nothing?

Carter K: That’s it?? Trevor just strangled his sister?? Nothing else?

Ollie C: Well, that’s all the papers wrote about it. A few months after Lily’s death, the parents moved away and never came back.

Carter K: Wait, just the parents moved away?? What about Trevor?

Ollie C: Oh, well I think he’s still in the mental hospital his parents put him in. I guess they couldn’t deal with having him around after he killed his sister.

Carter K: What hospital?

Ollie C: What?

Carter K: What hospital is he in?

Ollie C: Why? Are you going to go ask him why he killed his sister??

Carter couldn’t tell if Ollie was excited or defending this guy, but either way he wasn’t going to tell her. If she thought he was crazy, she might tell others and he didn’t want that.  
        Without responding to Ollie, Carter shut his computer, took a sleeping pill, and went to bed.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine  
The next day, Carter could feel Ollie’s eyes on him in almost every class they had together. In history, the teacher had put the tables into groups of four and assigned seats. Carter had to spend the next forty-five minutes trying to not look at Ollie from across the table. About twenty minutes into the teacher's’ lecture, Carter felt her nudge his foot, but he didn’t look at her. He knew that she was trying to get his attention and ask him about last night, but he didn’t want to talk about it any more. A few minutes later, he left another nudge, but this one was harder than the last and made Carter instinctively jump and glare at her.  
        Ollie, seeing that she had succeeded, simply smiled and pushed a note across the table to him. Rolling his eyes, Carter took the paper and turned back to face the teacher. He carefully opened the note to see that Ollie had printed out a news article about the murder in his house. The article said something about Trevor being admitted to a mental hospital called La Dame Blanche mental hospital. Below it Ollie had highlighted a line that said that Trevor stayed there until the age of eighteen and was released.  
        Released where? Where is he now? Does he still live in town? Can I contact him? Carter paused. Should I contact him? And if I did, what would I ask him.  
        After class, Carter approached Ollie to ask where she had gotten the article.  
        “I found it in my dad's office. He loves that kind of macabre horror stuff. He’s a big Poe and Lovecraft fan. Even has a Cthulhu tattoo on his arm.”  
        “A tattoo of what on his arm?”  
        “Never mind, anyways the point is that Trevor doesn’t live at the hospital any more. He was released when he was eighteen, so who knows where he is now.” Ollie shrugged and readjusted her backpack.  
        “I figured because you were asking about the house, you’d want to know more. To know that you don’t have to worry about Trevor coming back and trying to kill you too, ha ha.” Ollie waggled her fingers at Carter and chucked, but Carter didn’t feel any better about the house or what he had learned. If anything, the article only made him have more questions about the murder.  
        “Hey, I’m hella hungry, can we go get food?” Ollie was hopping back and forth from one foot to the next and holding her stomach, making it out to look like she would pass out soon if she didn’t get food.  
        “Yeah, sure.” Carter responded and the both made their way to the cafeteria.  
        After two tuna sandwiches and a bag of barbeque chips, Ollie relaxed into the plush library chair.  
        “You eat a lot” Carter stated.  
        “And you talk too much” Ollie responded, eyes closed and face towards the sun that was coming in through the windows.  
        “Are we even supposed to eat in here?” Carter asked, catching a glare from a librarian as she passed.  
        “No,” Ollie replied, “but I’m on a first name basis with all the gal’s in here, so they let me get away with pretty much anything.” Carter paused and looked at Ollie, in her black skinny jeans, dark combat boots and oversized green flannel, he still couldn’t believe that she was a cheerleader.  
        “I still can’t believe that you of all people are on the cheerleading team. Do you even like it?” Carter asked.  
        “Oh yeah,” Ollie said, sitting up and tucking her legs under her. “But it wasn’t my choice to join. It was my mother's.”  
        “Wait, really?”  
        “Well, kind of. Before school my freshman year, my mom said I had to join some kind of sport. And I hate running, like more than anything, and the only sport that I could think of that didn’t require running was cheerleading. And bonus points for the fact that it made my mom pissed.” Ollie smirked and leaned back in her chair.  
        “Your mom doesn’t like you doing cheerleading?”  
        “My mom did basketball and volleyball in high school. Cheerleading is the most girly, preppy, overrated sport I could have joined. But, I stuck with it because I like that it’s challenging. Not everyone is cut out for it.”  
        “Yeah, I don’t think I’d like it very much if I had to risk getting a black eye every time a threw someone” Carter said.  
        “Oh, it’s worse than that.” Ollie said. “I’m on my third year of cheerleading and I’ve already gotten about five concussions. All from the other girls.”  
        “What?” Carter leaned forward in his chair, gawking at her. “How could you possibly get that many?”  
        “Well,” Ollie started, “Say I throw a girl and she is supposed to spin around 360 degrees, but only spins 180, right? Or say she doesn’t make it the full 360. I still have to catch her and she ends up either elbowing me in the head or punching me. Simple as that.”  
        “Damn girl.” Was all that Carter could say.  
        They both leaned back and watched the clouds pass over the sun until the lunch bell rang.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten  
After school that day, Carter made the executive decision to not do anything. He came home, dumped his stuff on the bench by the front door, and made a bee line to his bed. The day hadn’t even been that stressful, the he hadn’t slept much the previous night. Something had kept him tossing and turning all night.   
Collapsing in the bed, Carter fell to sleep almost instantly. The dream started out normal, just Carter walking through the neighborhood and a regular day. It was raining slightly, but that was normal for that area. Carter didn’t have a rain jacket on, but neither did any of the other passers by. It was a North West thing to not wear a rain jacket in the rain.   
He turned the corner onto his street and jogged up his front steps and into his house locking the door behind him, party out of habit and party because something nagging at the back of his brain told him to. Kicking his shoes off and heading left into the kitchen, Carter called out for his mom to see if she was there. He had seen her car in the drive way, so he knew that she must be home somewhere, and the house wasn’t that big. Leaving the kitchen and crossing the entry way, Carter looked in the living room, but that was also empty. Carter started to get a strange feeling in his gut, but continued to search the house, this time with more urgency.   
There was something about the quietness of the house that made Carter uneasy. It was a habit that whenever his mother came home, she always put on some sort of music, kind of like white noise throughout the house, but the house was dead silent. Carter slowly made his way down the hall, careful to keep an eye on the door to the guest bedroom.   
Still calling for her, Carter opened the door to the master bedroom, but found it empty as well. He checked his bedroom for good measure, but again he found it empty. Carter felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There were only two rooms left to check; the guest bedroom and the bathroom.   
He walked over to the door of the spare room and just stared at it. The last time that he had been in here alone, something terrible had happened it him. His mind flashed back to that moment, and Carter shook impulsively, trying to get the memory to fade. He grabbed onto the door handle of the door, trying to build himself up, hoping that it was just his mom unpacking boxes again.  
Focusing on the thought of his mom, Carter swung the door open only to find the room empty as well. Scanning the room, but not entering it, Carter felt a sigh of relief. Perhaps his mother was just cleaning the bathroom, or taking a bath. She often did that when she had stressful days.  
“Mom?” Carter called through the bathroom door. “Mom, I’m coming in, don’t be naked please.” But there was no answer. Slowly, Carter cracked the bathroom door and peered in. He saw his moms tan arm laying out of the bath tub, unmoving. Fully entering the bathroom, Carter realized he was standing in a puddle of ice cold water. Terror ran through him as he took in the full sight of his mother; she was laying fully clothed in the bath tub, but her arms were slit from wrist to elbow and the water was stained a deep red. Her usually tan face was pale from lack of blood and her eyes were wide open, seemingly locked on Carter.  
Carter let out a scream and ran to his mother, pulling her out of the bath, shaking her to try and get her to wake up. Swaddling her body in a bath towel, Carter called for her over and over, now sobbing uncontrollably. His mothers body was cold to the touch but Carter continued to rub her to try and warm her up, to bring her back to life. Carter screamed at the top of his lungs over and over again. He called for help, he called for his mother. He screamed hoping that some one would come and help him, but when he realized there was no way to help her, he just screamed for the sake of screaming, tears rolling down his face shamelessly.   
Suddenly, Carter was being shaken violently and tried to fight back, believing that some one was trying to take him from his mother.   
“Get off! Don’t take her away! Get the fuck off of me!” Carter screamed and thrashed against the arms that were holding him tight.   
“Carter, Carter wake up!” He heard his mothers voice from a distance, and suddenly opened his eyes. His mother was alive and in front of him, a terrified look on her face. Behind him, his father still had his arms wrapped tight around Carter’s chest.  
“Mom?” he asked softly, looking at her in shock. “Mom, you’re okay!” He burst out of his fathers hold and pulled his mother into a tight hug, sobbing slightly.  
“Oh god, oh god, I thought you were dead. Oh my god, Mom. I was so scared.” Carter tried to contain his tears, and wiped them away with the back of his hand.  
“Carter, your father and I were terrified. We found you screaming on the floor in the bathroom. Are you alright?” His father led him to the living room, where Carter relaxed into the couch. His mother sat next to him and put a blanket across their lap.  
“The last thing I remember was falling asleep in bed. I had a terrible nightmare, it felt so real.” Carter stared at the floor, recalling scenes of his dream.   
“Could it have been a night terror?” Carters mom asked.   
“It could have very well been. My mother used to get them when she was a child. Scared the crap out of me. But she got meds for them.” Carter’s dad stood in front of him, rubbing his chin with his hand. “I never had one, but it could have skipped a generation. I’ll head out to the pharmacy now and get some sleeping pills for you. Sound good bud?”  
“Sure” was all that Carter could say. His dream had been so real and so vivid, he was terrified to even go back to sleep. After a few minutes, his dad left to the store and Carter helped his mom made dinner.   
“So,” his mom asked. “What was your dream about? Was I in it?”  
Carter glanced at his mom, who was chopping onions on the island.  
“Yeah,” he replied.  
“Well, don’t leave any details out. I want to hear about it.” His mother brought the cutting board over and added the onions to the wok the Carter was stirring. He looked at his mother, her long dark lashes and her chocolaty brown eyes. All he could see was her eyes in his nightmare, cold and dead, seemingly looking right through him. Quickly, Carter grabbed his mother in another tight hug.   
“You were dead. You were dead and you had killed yourself in the bath. I was so scared, it seemed so real. It seemed so real. And you were cold, like ice.” He realized that he was crying again, but didn’t bother to wipe his tears away this time.   
“Oh, honey,” his mother hugged him back and slowly started rubbing his back. “I would never do that. Don’t ever think that I would do that. I love you and your father too much to ever leave you. Besides,” she let go of him and held his face in her hands, staring intently at him, “if I die, who’s going to help you make stir fry?” Carter laughed a bit, and then pressed his palms into his eyes, attempting to stop the tears. His mother handed him a paper towel from the table. His dad came home a few minutes later will a small white pharmacy bag.  
“These aren’t specifically for night terrors, but the lady at the counter said that these were the strongest sleeping pills I could get without a prescription. Take two right before bed.” His dad handed him the small bag.  
“Thanks, Dad.” He took the bag and put it in his pocket, then turned back to the wok to finish dinner.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven  
That Friday after school, Carter and Ollie met up again in the cafeteria, because that was where the school had the best internet access, and worked on a group history project. Carter quickly realized that while Ollie was his only friend at the school, he did not work well with her. He was so used to doing all of the work by himself and now that he had to share the work with someone else, he got nervous. But Ollie quickly took charge of the project, delegating to the other two people what they would be doing and when they would have to have it done. It had also been almost a week that Carter had been on the sleeping pills his dad had gotten for him, and Carter was slightly out of sorts because of it.  
Luckily for Carter, Ollie made him her co captain on the project. The project was to write a short history report about a community landmark and seeing as how Carter was living in one, the group unanimously agreed that that would be the topic of the essay. The other two members were creating a cover for the essay, with a picture of the house then and the house now. Ollie and Carter had to write about what happened in the past and how the house was now.  
        “Do you think that your parents could give an interview on why they bought the house?” Ollie asked.  
        “Uh, I don’t think so. But my dad might want to.” Carter wasn’t sure if his mom would want to, seeing as how she didn’t tell him about the houses’ history until after they moved in. His dad was always a fan of being on camera, so he might.  
        “Okay, that’ll work.” Ollie went back to looking up information on her MacBook. Ollie would find new information, and Carter would write down certain quotes and dates in his notebook. After about thirty minutes of straight research, Carter's mind started to wander. Instead of writing down what Ollie told him, he began doodling in the margins of his note book. At first it was just common things, like dogs and cats that he liked, then a sketch of his mom, then a quick one of Ollie. Then he just started drawing eyes. Over and over again. But every time he would finish a pair, he’d scratch it out. It wasn’t right, that’s not what they looked like.  
        Over and over Carter drew eyes. There was something missing about them though, something that he couldn’t place.  
        “Hey” Ollie said, shaking him. “Did you get any of what I just told you?”  
        “Oh, uh, would you hate me if I said no?” Carter shied away playfully. Ollie just rolled her eyes at him.  
        “You know; those are pretty good drawings.” She said, pointing at the one of her and Carter's mom.  
        “Are you in an art class here? Because if you aren’t you should be.”  
        “Really? You think so?” Carter let Ollie grab the notebook and get a closer look at the eyes that he had been drawing.  
        “So, what’s with eyes? You seem to draw them pretty well, so why do you keep drawing them over and over?”  
        Carter was speechless for a moment. Should I tell her? Should I lie? He couldn’t decide what to do. He didn’t want Ollie to think that he was weird or losing his mind at all, but that’s kind of how he felt when he thought about it.  
        “I just like drawing eyes. They’re the main focus of a person's face. That’s where I look when I talk to people.”  
        “Wait, does everybody else do that too?” Ollie asked.  
        “Yeah, that’s where you’re supposed to look. Why, where do YOU look when people talk to you?”  
        “Uh, I look at their mouths. I watch their lips move.” Ollie said.  
        “That’s weird, why do you do that?” Carter said, instinctively covering his mouth. “What if someone has food in their teeth and you just have to watch it move from one spot to the other?”  
        “Carter, I watch their mouths because I read their lips. I can’t hear well, but I hear well enough that I don’t need a hearing aid.” Carter just looked at her. “What?” Ollie asked.  
        “Is there anything that isn’t wrong with you? You can’t hear very well and you’re blind as a bat without your glasses, yet you are in this super intense active sport where you have to use both of those things.”  
        “Yeah, I can’t hear so it’s a good thing we yell everything and I can see well enough to catch the girl that I’m throwing in the air.”  
        “Wait, you don’t wear contacts when you guys are out there??” Carter was shocked. He’d had this conversation with Ollie before regarding her eyes, but he had always assumed that she saved contacts for the football games or performances.  
        “Yeah, I go out there blind.” Ollie said, matter-of-factly. Looking down at the clock on her computer screen, Ollie suddenly closed the laptop and grabbed her cheer bag.  
        “Shit. I didn’t see what time it was.” She got up and headed to the girls locker room.  
        “What?” Carter said, “you have three hours until the game even starts!”  
        “Yeah, for you maybe. I have to be out there an hour early for warm ups, so that only leaves me two hours to get all of this” she motioned to her attire, “looking like a happy peppy cheerleader” Ollie made her voice higher on the last few words to emphasize her point.  
        Ollie gave one more wave to Carter, and then she was gone. Carter, left alone with his notes, began doodling again, this time, however, he drew sketches of Ollie.


	12. Chapter 12

The game was terrible. In every sense of the word. Twenty minutes in, rain started to pelt the players and the first few rows of on lookers in the stadium. And Carter was in the very first row. Standing room only, right up against the bars of the stadium, but not to watch the game. To watch Ollie. He had managed to catch her right before she took the field with the other girls. She didn’t recognize him at first, probably because she didn’t have her glasses on, but then as he got closer, he saw her smile and greet him for a hug. She looked completely transformed in his eyes.   
Her long brown hair was pulled up into a tight pony tail, but the ends were curled beautifully so that they bounced as she walked. With her glasses off, Carter was able to notice that her usually blue eyes had a hint of yellow around the middle and that her eyelashes, when covered in mascara, nearly touched her eyebrows.  
        She was transformed into a preppy happy cheerleader, at least on the outside. She still had the weird sarcasm and still called him homie as she took the field. During the game, if Carter watched closely, after every cheer, Ollie would go from a smiley, happy teenage girl, to having a look that could kill someone. In a split second, Ollie changed and it made Carter laugh every time. She was the cheer captain, but look like she hated every second of it. And when the rain started, she didn’t even try and hide it.  
        The rain was louder than the announcers, but still the cheerleaders kept on cheering. And Carter kept on watching. He wasn’t sure if Ollie could see him, or even hear him when he yelled back the cheers, but he did every time.  
        At half time, Ollie got them both hot coffees. Carter added five sugars and cream, Ollie drank hers black.  
        The next quarter went on without a change in the game. The rain never died down, nor did it lighten. In the fourth quarter, after most of the crowd had left, a thick fog covered the field and the cheerleaders. From where Carter was, he couldn’t even make out what was going on, but could just barely make out the scoreboard, and could tell that the team was losing. As time went on, more and more of the fans left, partly because of the game, and partly because of the weather. Carter was amazed that the coaches kept the cheerleaders out there, in those tiny skirts and such.  
        With a few minutes left in the game, Carter squinted through the rain and the fog to try and make out the score and how much time was left, the fields floodlights went out. Some of the cheerleaders screamed, but Carter heard her yelling at them to be quiet and be still. Carter wasn’t afraid of the dark, but this was complete darkness. The fog and the rain blocked out any kind of light from the moon, and the nearest street was over a block away. Carter just stood there shaking, partly due to the cold and the damp, and partly because he could feet someone walking down the steps of the stadium.  
        It’s just a fan trying to maneuver in the dark, Carter told himself, but he still felt scared. He didn’t move, but could feel the steady vibrations through the metal underneath his feet. A steady thumping against his feet that traveled up his legs and straight into his chest. Why was he feeling so uneasy, so scared? Carter put his hands out and grabbed onto the metal bar in front of him, hoping to get a hold of his terror. The vibrations got harder as the person got closer and closer. Suddenly, when Carter felt as though the person was right behind him, the vibrations and footsteps stopped. Carter didn’t move a muscle, he couldn’t. He hated this feeling, this feeling of complete dread and terror. He had never felt this kind of helplessness before.  
        Carter felt a hand slowly move up his back and grab his shoulder. Turning him around, Carter could feel someone’s breath against his neck. The person holding him was smaller than he was, by about a foot, but the hand on his shoulder felt huge.  
        “Carter,” the voice sing-songed to him. “Did you like my game we played the other night?” Carter began shaking uncontrollably, his clenched fists pressed hard into him thighs.  
        “Because I did. I’ve got lots of games we can play.” Carter could feel the person move to his side, the hand trailing across his chest. He felt a head rest on his shoulder,  
        “I live playing games with you, Carter. I hope you like playing with me too. I hope we get to play together for a long, long, long time.”  
        Carter squeezed his eyes shut, “This isn’t real” he said, “you aren’t real. I’m at a football game. I’m watching Ollie cheer. I’m at a football game.” Carter felt the raindrops hit his face.  
        “What?” the voice now changed into something demonic. The small, child-like voice was transformed into something deeper.  
        “I don’t like you playing with anyone else but me.” Carter was suddenly struggling for breath, the hand wrapped around his throat was strong. Carter tried to push the person away, but it only pulled him closer. Carter could smell something foul on it’s breath, like chocolate that had been burned. “Nobody gets to play with you but me!”  
        At the last word, the stadium lights flooded. Because the outage had lasted so long, the score on the scoreboard had disappeared. Both teams were soaking wet and wanted the game to end. Ollie’s team forfeited, which meant that Ollie could go home.  
        Running over to her cheer bag, she reached inside and quickly put on her glasses and looked around for Carter. She knew he had been there; she could hear his voice during the game. Scanning the stadium, Ollie finally found him at the very front row, laying on the ground, convulsing violently.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen  
        Carter woke up in bed, his own bed. Sitting up, he felt a sharp pain echo through his head. Laying back down, he rolled over to see where his desk should be. But it wasn’t his desk that he was looking at. His MacBook was replaced by what looked like a model airplane, and Carter didn’t recognize the young boy who was building it.  
        “Hey,” Carter said, sitting up slowly, “hey” he said again. But the boy didn’t reply to either call. The boy was young, about twelve or thirteen with stark black hair. The boy was dressed in a black t-shirt and grey jeans. There was a prescription bottle next to him on the desk. Carter could tell from the sunshine from the window that it was summer in this dream. Or at least Carter hoped that it was a dream. He had never seen this boy before in his life, and for some reason, the boy couldn’t hear him or just wasn’t responding.  
        Carter tossed his legs over the edge of the bed and felt his feet hit soft, dark blue carpeting. Carter didn’t have carpet in his room, they renovators had torn it up before they had moved in. Something about mold and moss being in it.  
        But here Carter was, sitting on a random bed, feeling carpet underneath his feet. Carter stood up and walked over to the boy, trying to get a glimpse of his face, trying to recognize him in some way. Just before Carter could see his face, the boy stood up and rushed from the room, taking the toy airplane with him.  
        Carter ran after him, calling after the little boy. The boy ran out of the room, and ran into the room next door, the guest room. Carter was about to enter, but stopped. This didn’t feel right. None of this felt right. Backing away from the door, Carter glanced around the hallway. The walls were adorned with framed photographs of a family. Both of the parents were in the backdrop of the photo. The mother had large, curled blonde hair and was dressed in a black velvet dress. She had a string of pearls on her next and a set of matching earrings. The dad was dressed in a black tux and had brown short cropped hair, which was also curly. In front of them stood two children, a daughter and a son. The daughter had many of the mothers’ features; long blonde curling hair, bright blue eyes, creamy skin. The daughter was also smiling widely for the picture, showing off a gap in between her teeth were she was missing a tooth.  
        Carter chuckled. The little girl looked so happy and wholesome; she looked as though she loved her family and loved having her picture taken. Carter then looked at the young boy in the photo and suddenly the room got colder, the lights dimmed significantly. This young boy in the photo took very much after his father; he had dark brown hair that combed back out of his face, but he wasn’t smiling. He was almost grimacing at the camera. He did not have his mother's blue eyes, but rather the father's dark green eyes.  
        The young boy stuck out from the entire family photo, but in the other photos on the walls, the school photos the family had framed, the boy was smiling and looked happy. From the dates on the bottom of the pictures, Carter could tell that the family picture was the newest one. Some thing within the young boy had changed. Going back to the family photo, Carter was struck by something else about the boy, something almost familiar, but not something that he could place.  
        Suddenly, the boy ran past Carter, nearly knocking him into the picture. Carter looked after him and watched the boy run down the hallway and then into the living room area. Carter glanced at the spare room and saw the young girl emerge and chase after her brother. She ran down the hallway, but stopped in front of Carter. Then, without warning, she turned to him and looked directly at him.  
        “You aren’t supposed to be here” she said.  
        “Wha- what?” Carter asked, stunned.  
        “My friend said that you aren’t supposed to be here. That you need to go back to your own time. He says that he’ll come for you soon and then we all can play.” The girl smiled at him, revealing her missing tooth.  
        “But now, it’s time for you to go back, Carter. Carter. Carter”  
        As the little girl repeated his name over and over, Carter felt the room slowly start to melt away into blackness. To keep from vomiting, Carter closed his eyes and tried to get a grip on the walls. All he could hear was the sound of someone calling his name over and over again, taunting him.  
        “Carter? Carter?” Someone was shaking him, trying to get him awake.  
        “Carter, can you hear me?” He felt something wet hit his face, something like rain.  
Slowly Carter opened his eyes, squinting against the bright floodlights of the stadium. Some one was still calling his name. Suddenly, Carter was face to face with those eyes again, the dark green eyes of the young boy again.  
        Carter sat up and tried to scoot away from those eyes, to get away from this dream.  
        “Carter, what is wrong? Are you alright?” Ollie looked at him with confusion and slight concern, squinting her dark green eyes at him,  
        Carter could only sit there in the rain soaked stadium, Ollie’s face blocking out most of the flood lights.  
        “Uh,” Carter stumbled, “your eyes are really green. Never noticed that before.”  
        Ollie cracked a slight smile, but then turned serious once again.  
        “Why didn’t you tell me that you have seizures? You scared me half to death!” Ollie reached and pulled Carter to his feet.  
        “What? I don’t have seizures. What are you talking about?” Carter stood up and wrapped his arms around himself, partly because of the rain and partly because of what Ollie was saying.  
        “I just saw you!” she yelled, “you were laying on the floor flopping like a fish out of water!” Ollie hunched over, trying to keep the rain off of her.  
        “Can we talk about this inside or something? I feel like a fish out here in this rain” Carter wanted to try and get Ollie off the subject of his so called seizure. Leaving the stadium and heading to the parking lot, they both made their way to Ollie’s car and got inside.  
        Ollie let her jeep roll over and turn on and cranked up the heat, waiting for the plastic windows to defog. Both her and Carter just sat there, staring straight ahead. For a while, they watched the other cars turn their lights on and pull out of the parking lot. Even after the windows cleared, they sat in the car and watched the parking lot slowly continue to empty.  
        Once the lot was nearly cleared, Ollie turned slowly in the driver seat to face Carter.  
        “Are you okay?” she asked. Carter looked at her and was once again struck by her green eyes. She had put her glasses back on and they were smattered with small raindrops. She had never bothered to wipe them off.  
        “Let me clean these for you. I think my under-shirt is dry.” Without waiting for her to respond, Carter reached over and slid Ollie’s glasses off and started to dry them. Looking down at his work, Carter tried to work out a way to get away from the topic of seizures. Glancing at Ollie, Carter could see that she was blushing slightly and knew that that was his out.  
        Placing her glasses in his lap, Carter turned to face Ollie. Taking a deep breath, Carter leaned in and kissed Ollie. Carter held the kiss for a moment, waiting to see if Ollie would kiss him back. After a second, Carter felt Ollie relax and lean into the kiss. She smelled like sweet rain water and sweat.  
        After a few more moments, they both broke away and looked at each other. Carter felt a shiver run down his back when he looked into Ollie’s green eyes. They were still the same as the boy eyes from his nightmare.  
        “Well, that was unexpected” Ollie said breaking the silence. “I guess I should drive you home now, huh?”  
        “Uh, yeah. That’d be great” Carter said, looking away and chuckling. He stared out the window the entire ride back to his house.  
        As soon as he got home, Carter went straight into his room and opened his laptop. He was determined to find out more about the people who lived here before him and why Ollie had the same eyes at the boy in his nightmare, if that’s what it was.  
        Plugging his headphones in, Carter began searching any and all websites that he could think of to get information. When did they move in? How long were they here for exactly? Where is the daughter buried? Where is the brother now? What does he do? Can I get in contact with him? What all started this?  
        There were questions on top of questions that Carter wanted answered. No, he needed these questions answered. There was so much going on in this house that he either needed to fix it, or leave and Carter was not the type of person to just quit and leave something.  
        Carter thought back to kissing Ollie in the car, and shook his head to get the memory to clear. He hadn’t intended to kiss her, he really didn’t even want to, but it got her off the topic of his freak out session in the bleachers. But now he would have to deal with her at school. How was he going to explain to her that he wasn’t looking for a relationship and that he just kissed her to distract her?  
        Carter rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and went back to researching the house and the family that lived before him. It really didn’t take long for him to find the article about the murder. Reading it over, it really didn’t give a whole lot of detail other than what Ollie had already told him. The boy was totally normal until moving into the house and then he started having night terrors and then one time just killed his sister. The family moved out about a year after the murder and the son was sentenced to a mental hospital until he was 18.  
        Carter looked over the article again; there was no mention of how old the children were or what day the murder took place, only the year that it took place. The names of the family members were also changed, for security sake. Carter sighed and leaned back in his chair. The main article about the murder and it doesn’t even use the actual name of the family. The realtor might have the families real name, but Carter couldn’t think of how to get that information from her.  
        This was the best lead he had and it sucked. Looking back at the article, the picture it displayed was of the front of the house, all taped off with yellow hazard tape and VPD officers standing around keeping people off the property. Scrolling down, Carter noticed a picture of the author of the article; it was his first big story and so he had posed in front of the house, smiling a huge grin. If Carter couldn’t get the names from the article, maybe he could get it from the guy who wrote it.  
        After a few minutes of searching, Carter found the author's email address and send a letter asking for the real names of the family that lived there. Carter said that he was a history buff and was interested in learning more about the family that used to live in his house, which wasn’t totally a lie.  
        Carter included his phone number as well, incase the guy wanted to get in contact with Carter faster, which Carter hoped he would. Rolling his shoulders and reading over the email once more time, Carter pressed send and fell back in his chair. His stomach growled and Carter looked at the time on his phone. It was around one in the morning. The game had gotten out late and Carter had missed dinner.  
        Sliding his chair out from under his desk, Carter tossed his phone on the bed and headed for the kitchen. In the fridge, Carter found that night's stir fry in a plastic container and threw it in the microwave to warm up. Carter’s mind went back to the kiss he shared with Ollie in the jeep. She didn’t seem to have minded, and she kissed him back. Maybe Carter was interested in her. She was interesting and easy to talk to, she was weird but not too weird and she was even a cheerleader. What was better than dating a cheerleader?  
        Carter was surprised by the sound of the microwave going off and quickly grabbed his dinner and walked back to his bedroom door, ignoring the spare room all together. He closed the door behind him and placed the food on his desk and swooped up his phone from his bed. He had a text from an unknown number that read  
        Millplain coffee shop across from the pizza place. Twelve noon. Be there.  
        -CB  
        Carter assumed it was from the reporter, considering that the initials matched the name that was on the article. He did find it weird though that the author was being so secretive over text. Carter shrugged and gave a nonchalant response, downed his stir fry and a few sleeping pills and then fell into a dreamless sleep.


	14. Chapter 14

Parking his Jetta in the student lot on Monday morning, Carter tried to figure out what class he would need to skip to meet up with the author of the article. Carter walked lazily through the halls towards his first class and sat down in a random seat. The beginning of the day went by him in a blur, with teachers blathering on about things he already knew. By the time that lunch rolled around, Carter was starving and he could smell the cafeteria pizza a mile away.  
        Taking his place in the line, Carter caught sight of the back of Ollie’s head in front of him. Suddenly the memories of the Friday night caught up with him. His cheeks flushed and Carter wanted to turn around and leave school right then, but Ollie turned around and caught sight of him. Quickly, Ollie smiled and waved at Carter behind her, but then grabbed her food and walked off to the library.  
        What? Carter thought. She… she didn’t even say anything to me. We kissed! Did she forget? Did she not take it seriously? What is she thinking? Does she hate my now? Carter’s mind was going a mile a minute. The lunch lady handed him his food and change and Carter slowly made it to the library, but stopped. Ollie was in there; did she want him in there? Did she want to be alone? Carter didn’t have time to take another step before the alarm on his phone rang. It was time to leave to meet the author.  
        Carter jogged to his car and ate his pizza in between shifting the gears of his Jetta. Carter made it to the coffee shop with a few minutes to spare before he was supposed to meet, so he leaned his seat back and ate his pizza with a little more leisure. Carter went through all of the details of the article and formulated questions to ask the author. What are some of the other details about the death? Where did the son go after he was released from the hospital? Where is her now? Where are the parents now? Did they leave anything in the house? Anything that might be causing problems now?  
        Carter was startled by someone tapping on his window. It was a woman in her mid thirties wearing a dark green rain jacket with its hood up. She made a motion with her hand that signaled Carter to meet her inside the coffee shop. She left his window and jogged into the building, clearly eager to get out of the rain.  
        Carter quickly left the car and ran inside after her and found her sitting at a corner table near the windows of the shop.  
        “Charlie?” Carter asked. He was expecting to meet a man; the picture in the article was of a young man, not a woman.  
        “Yeah, hi, are you Carter?” Charlie stuck out her hand and unwrapped her scarf with her other.  
        “Uh, yeah” Carter said, “I, um, I wasn’t expecting-“  
        “A woman? Yeah, I get that a lot. My name is Charlotte but I prefer Charlie. Keeps it ambiguous.”  
        “Oh, the picture on the article is of a guy though” Carter sat down across from her.  
        “Yeah, that was my intern at the time. Figured I’d give him his five minutes of fame before he was shipped off to the shredder.” Charlie smiled a bit and sat back in her chair, looking at Carter.  
        “Why do you want to know about this house? I covered that story over a decade ago.”  
        “I live there now.” Carter said bluntly. Charlie leaned forward excitedly.  
        “No shit?! They finally managed to sell that hell hole?” She seemed genuinely intrigued that someone was living in the house.  
        “Yeah, my parents bought it a few months ago. I wanted to ask you some questions about the family that lived there. The one with the little girl who was murdered.”  
        “Well as away then. Just know that when you are done with your questions, I’ll have some of my own.” Charlie leaned back again and loosely crossed her arms in front of her chest.  
        “Okay, um, well, what is the actual name of the family? Do they still live in the state?”  
        “Last name was Walters. Doubt the parents are still in the state. As soon as their son was admitted they were up and outta here as soon as possible. Feel free to look up the name though. I don’t remember the first names of the parents though.”  
        Carter pulled out his phone and wrote down Walters. He did want look up the family and see if there were ANY family members in the area.  
        “What really happened with the daughter? The article said that she was just strangled by the brother, is that true?”  
        “Well,” Here, Charlie took a pause and rubbed her forehead. “Yes and no.”  
        “What does that mean? Is it yes or no?” Carter was leaning forward now, eager to get the whole story.  
        “Yes she was strangled, but no that’s not the only thing about the murder. The daughter was found dead with the light chain around her neck, but the son was also passed out next to her. And in the autopsy report, the only marks on the girl’s body were from the chain, no other sort of defense wounds.”  
        “So?” Carter asked, “She didn’t defend herself, she was a little girl.”  
        “But she didn’t fight back at all. At all. Let that sink in. Your sibling or family member comes in and starts strangling you with a light chain and you don’t fight back? Does that seem right to you?”  
        Carter thought a little more about it. If he was being strangled, he would definitely fight back, especially if it was his mom or dad or something.  
        “See? Exactly. You’d fight back” Charlie said pulling him back to the conversation.  
        “I guess so” was all that Carter could say.  
        “The other thing that was interesting about the scene was that there were none of the brothers’ finger prints on her. Not a single one. It’s like he strangled her without touching her. How does that happen? Hmm? Do you have an answer to that?”  
        Carter just looked at Charlie and furrowed his brows. That couldn’t be possible. The brother HAD to have touched his sister to kill her. But if there were no fingerprints, maybe that means that…  
        “Yeah, maybe he didn’t kill his sister.” Charlie interrupted.  
        Carter just looked at her. How did she know what I was thinking about?  
        “I’m really good at reading faces, don’t worry.” Charlie said.  
        “Stop doing that. It’s weirding me out.”  
        “Fine. Done.” Charlie got up and stretched her legs and walked to the bar and ordered a coffee. Carter took this time to google the last name Quint but there were over five million hits. Exasperated, Carter put his phone in his back pocket and waited for Charlie to come back  
        Clutching a hot coffee cup, Charlie sat back down and slowly sipped on her cup. Carter was desperately holding back questions. After a few minutes of Carter watching Charlie nurse her coffee, she set it down on the table and looked back at him. She made a motion for him to ask more questions.  
        “Where did the brother go? After he turned 18? Did the hospital kick him out? Does he still live in town? Does he have family?”  
        “I think he is still in town, yeah. He didn’t get kicked out of the hospital though.”  
        “What? I thought he did get kicked out, after he aged out.”  
        “No, he didn’t get kicked out. Him getting kicked out is just a rumor that someone started. He got a job there. I think he works there as a janitor.”


	15. Chapter 15

Carter sat in his car and mentally went over the entire encounter with Charlie. He couldn’t believe that the guy who killed his sister was still living in the town. He wanted to meet him, ask him about his sister, ask him why he killed her, if he even DID kill her.            
        Carter was on his phone looking up the address of the hospital when it suddenly started ringing. Ollie’s name and number popped up on the screen. Taking a deep breath, Carter answered it.  
        “Hey,” he said.  
        “Hey, where’d you go? You missed the last few classes? Did you die?” Ollie asked.  
        “Ha, no, I uh, just wasn’t feeling well. But I’m okay now. What’s up?”  
        “Well, I took some pretty killer notes on the last few classes if you want to come over and copy them? Also, we should see if your mom or dad will talk to us about the house.”  
        “Uh, sure. I can head over to your place in a few. I’ll stop by my place first and see if my mom can answer some questions about the house and stuff. Sound good?”  
        “Yeah, I’ll have some food ready when you get here. Just give me an ETA before you leave.” Ollie responded.  
        “Sounds like a plan.”  
        “Okay, see you soon then.” And then she hung up. Carter was grateful that Ollie kept such good notes on the lectures and that she remembered all of the projects that they had due. He had totally forgotten about it.  
        His mom was actually home when Carter got there, which meant that he could just rack her brain really quickly.  
        “Hey mom, I have a thing due for history class. Mind if I ask you a couple questions? Just to get your responses?”  
        “Jesus, Carter, I’m old but not old enough to answer questions for your history class.” His mom turned and rolled her eyes, but sat down across from him at the dining room table nonetheless.  
        “Ha ha, don’t worry, it’s just about the house and stuff. Local history.” Carter placed his phone in the middle of the table and set it to record.  
        “Well,” his mom said, “we’ve only been living in the house of a few months. There really isn’t a whole lot to say about it.” It was clear from his mother’s posture that she was uncomfortable with the topic.  
        “It’ll only be a few questions, I promise.” Carter tried to reassure her. “First off, why did you and dad buy this house? What drew you to it?”  
        “Well,” his mom started, “it was in our price range, it was fairly close to the base, and it was in a good neighborhood. Besides, it’s one story and there is a ton of space for remodeling and expanding.”  
        “Fair enough. Second, did you know about the history of the house before you bought it?”  
        “Uh,” his mother paused here, clearly thinking over her answer. “Yes and no.”  
        “What does that mean?” Carter questioned.  
        “Yes we knew that there had been a crime committed here, but no we didn’t know that it was as serious as a murder.” His mom paused again. Her hands were on the table top and Carter could see her wringing them over and over again.  
        “What did the relator tell you about the house?”  
        “Basically the same thing. That the house had been sitting for a few years and that it was in need of some TLC. She really didn’t mention the murder until after your father and I had looked up the house on the internet. That was where we first discovered the story.”  
        “And that didn’t deter you at all from buying the house?” Carter asked.  
        “Oh no, it was a great deal and the history of the house didn’t bother your father and me. It was all in that past, so what did we care?” His mother tried to chuckle in an attempt to lighten the mood. Carter just sat there looking at her.  
        “Okay. I think those are all the questions I have. Thanks mom.” Carter say his mom relax back into the chair a little.  
        “That was easy. So, what are you up to now? I feel like I haven’t gotten to hangout with you in a while.”  
        “I’m actually headed over to a friends’ house. We are working on this project together and she invited me to do some of the work over at her place.”  
        “Ooo, it’s a girl is it?” His mother suddenly lighted up and leaned forward on the table, resting her head on her hands. She was grinning like a madman and it was making Carter uncomfortable. He could feel his face getting red.  
        “I’m actually late, um, I uh, should get going.” Carter quickly through all of his stuff into his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. Walking to the front door, he pulled on his shoes, not bothering to lace them.  
        “What’s her name?” His mother asked from behind him. “What does she look like? Is she pretty? Is she tall? You’re tall, so you’ll need a tall girlfriend. It would be weird if she was like, five foot. What color hair does she have? How did you meet her? Do you like her? When do your dad and I get to meet her?” His mother was talking a mile a minute and Carter just wanted to get out of the house.  
        Grabbing his car keys from the rack, Carter moved past his mother and bolted out the front door and headed for his car.  
        “Just be sure to use a condom! Or don’t! I like the idea of grand kids!” Carter felt his face turn completely red as he got in his car and drove away from his house. He knew his mom was weird but that was really weird. He was glad that there was no one around to hear her say that.  
        Opening up the maps app on his phone, Carter entered in Ollie’s address and texted her saying that his ETA was around ten minutes.  
        Pulling up to Ollie’s house, Carter was surprised to see that her house was one of many different mini-mansion type houses. Carter parked across the street and grabbed his bag from the back. Ollie’s house was at the center of a cul-de-sac, but Carter knew from the jeep parked outside that the center house was hers. He texted her first before walking up to the door and knocking. She opened the door and Carter got a strong scent of something good.  
        “Hi!” Ollie said. School had ended less than thirty minutes ago, but she was already dressed in sweatpants and her hair was up.  
        “What is that smell?” Carter asked as Ollie waved him inside. The entryway of the house was littered with jackets and shoes of varying sized and colors.  
        “Well that’s a nice hello.” Ollie said. “Take your shoes off and place them where the rest are. Then follow me.” She headed down the long entry way and around the corner. Carter noticed that her house was so big that it had an entry way. Slipping off his shoes, Carter took a moment to look at the pictures on the walls. There were over nine different kids’ school photos on the walls, all ranging from elementary school to senior graduation pictures. The last photo on the wall was a family picture with Ollie and all of the kids around her.  
        “Hey Ollie,” Carter called, “who are all these kids?” She appeared around the corner and looked at the picture Carter was asking about, and then looked at him.  
        “Oh, these are all my kids” she said. Carter turned to her with a look of complete surprise. No way she had had this many kids, she was barely even 18!  
        “I’m kidding you goof!” she smiled and shook him by his shoulders a bit. “These are all of my siblings’ dummy.”  
        “Whoa,” Carter took a moment to catch his breath. “You really had me going there.”  
        “Well, you ask a stupid question, you’re going to get a stupid answer. Come on, lunch is almost done.”  
        Carter followed Ollie around the corner and into the kitchen and dining room area. The two rooms were combined into one, but the kitchen was separated by a long granite counter top that circled the kitchen in a C shape. Carter pulled up one of the bar stools and placed his backpack on the floor next to him. Ollie walked over to the stove and started stirring a pot of something that made Carter’s stomach growl.  
        Looking around the kitchen, Carter noticed more pictures on the walls and small chicken decals on the base boards. Looking at the different chicken stickers, Carter sudden heard an actual chicken. Staring at the picture, Carter shook his head a bit, trying to clear his head. The chicken sound came again.  
        “Uh, Ollie?” Carter asked, slowing turning to her. “Do you, perchance, have chickens at all?”  
        “Oh yeah! We have about 30 in the back yard. Why? Are they being too loud?”  
        “No, I just thought I was going crazy there for a second. That’s a lot of foul.”  
        “Yeah, my mom likes to try and keep a small farm.”  
        “Oh yeah? What else do you have here?”  
        “Um,” Ollie put her back to the stove and crossed her arms, thinking. “We have the thirty chickens, about three inside cats, three outside cats, and three dogs. We used to have a fish tank, but then one of the fish ate all the other ones so now we just have the one.”  
        “Holy shit.” Carter couldn’t believe the number of animals that she had. Her family lived in a cul-de-sac! “I bet your neighbors love you.” Carter said sarcastically.  
        “We don’t talk to the neighbors.”  
        “Yeah, me neither. Hey, I got my mom to answer some questions about the house. I recorded them on my phone, want to have a listen?”  
        “Sure! Just let me feed the kids first.” Ollie pulled out a stack of white porcelain bowls from one cupboard and a handful of glasses from the next and placed them beside the pot on the stove. She walked over to the staircase that lead up stairs and yelled, “FOOD IS ON!!” At the top of her lungs. All at once, Carter heard shuffling and foot steps from upstairs and then a horde of teenage boys and girls appeared in the kitchen serving themselves buffet style from the pot while Ollie sat next to Carter, sipping her coffee.  
        The group served themselves and then quickly vanished upstairs to where they once were. Carter just sat at the counter, stunned.  
        “Do you watch them?” Carter asked Ollie.  
        “Yeah. My parents don’t get off work until around 8, so I make food and leave them to do what they want. Most of them are old enough to manage themselves. It’s just the food thing that they need help with. Anyways, let’s listen to the audio you got.”  
        “Oh, right.” Carter reached into his backpack and pulled out his phone and MacBook. He connected the two and played the audio of his interview with his mom back through the speakers.  
        Carter only half listened as Ollie took down notes from the audio, until he heard a third voice come through. A voice that sent chills down his back. Carter turned up the volume on the computer and got closer to the speakers to listen.  
        “Do you hear that?” Carter said. “It sounds like someone is whispering in the background of the audio.”  
        “Maybe it’s your little brother or sister talking” Ollie reasoned.  
        “I’m an only child,” Carter said quickly. “No, listen, someone is saying something.” Carter opened his audio app on his computer and quickly muted his and his mother's voices. Ollie leaned in closer too.  
        Carter strained to hear what the voice was saying, but he was certain that it was there. He looked at Ollie, and she nodded, noting that she heard the voice too. It was whispering the same thing over and over again, but it was too quiet to hear. Turning the full volume up and getting as close to the speakers as they could, Ollie and Carter struggled to hear what the voice was saying.  
        “PLAY WITH ME!” Suddenly came blaring out of the speakers. Ollie and Carter both covered their ears and grimaced. Carter reached forward and slammed the laptop shut. They both looked at each other for a moment before either of them spoke.  
        “I think you should explain that to me.” Ollie said. She looked more shocked and concerned than anything else.  
        “I want food first.” Carter got up and served himself some of the macaroni from the pot. It was clearly homemade and Ollie had added spices and bacon bits to it. It was amazing and Carter ate a whole bowl before going back for seconds. He didn’t realize how hungry he was. He hadn’t gotten a chance to eat breakfast or lunch because he had needed to meet with Charlie. The entire time that Carter was eating, Ollie just sat there and waited, watching him eat.  
        “Okay, now tell me.” She said, seeing that Carter was slowing down. In between bites, Carter told her about the house, his dream and about what he saw at the stadium. He told her about meeting with the author of the article, but didn’t mention that the boy was still in town and was working at the hospital. He didn’t want Ollie to think that he was too crazy. But Ollie just sat there looking at him while he talked, nodding occasionally. When Carter was done Ollie just sat there for a minute, taking everything in.  
        “Are you okay though?” Was the first thing that she said.  
        “What?” Carter was confused. After all of the crazy shit he had just told her, her first question was if he was okay?  
        “Are you okay?” She said, but this time with more emphasis.  
        “Uh, yeah. I guess I am. I mean, I’ve nearly shit myself every single time something like this happens and I now take pretty strong sleeping pills to get to bed, but that’s about it.”  
        “I think I need some ice cream.” Ollie got up and walked to the fridge. She pulled out a pint of rocky road and grabbed two spoons from the drawer. She motioned Carter to follow her into what he thought was a downstairs office. It turned out to be her bedroom, which Carter thought was weird. Instead of a normal door, she had two French doors that opened in to reveal her bed, a desk, and a TV mounted on the wall across from the bed. Ollie sat down and grabbed the remote, placing the ice cream on the bed.  
        “You have your choice of the desk chair, the bed or the floor.” Ollie said. “I don’t want to do any more homework and I don’t want you to be freaking out over this stuff. We’ll figure this out later. For now, can we just eat ice cream and watch cartoons?”  
        Carter looked at her and grinned. He was so happy that she didn’t think he crazy. He sat down on the bed and began spooning rocky road into his mouth while Ollie picked a cartoon to watch.


	16. Chapter 16

Carter ended up staying at Ollie’s house until her mom come home around eight thirty. He met her in passing as she lazily went upstairs to bed. Ollie had already put her siblings to bed and taken away their electronics, so all her mom had to do was get herself to bed.  
        “Your mom looked hella tired.” Carter said. Ollie chuckled, “Yeah, she usually is ‘hella’ tired when she gets home. She works over an hour away so she drives around a lot. But she does good work. Keeps a roof over our heads.”  
        “Well that’s good. What does your dad do?” Carter asked.  
“Oh, he works at some big fancy place doing important stuff. I never really bother to ask, and he’s usually more tired than Mom is when she gets home.  
“Got it.” Carter and Ollie just stood outside under the arch way of her house for a moment, not really saying anything and not looking at each other either.  
        “We don’t have to mention it.” Ollie said suddenly.  
        “What?” Carter asked.  
        “The kiss. If you didn’t mean it, that’s cool. If you did mean it, that’s cool too. I just figured I wouldn’t push it until you said something about it but you really don’t say much of anything to I figured I’d just let it go.”  
        “Oh, uh. Okay. I’m not really sure what it meant though.” Carter said. “But I know that I don’t want to stop hanging out with you. I like doing that. Can we just stick to doing that for now?”  
        “Of course, homie. Also, if you ever need a place to stay that isn’t haunted by the host of some dead girl, feel free to come over any time.” Ollie said, giving Carter a quick hug.  
        “Will do. And thanks for not thinking I’m crazy, Ollie” Carter said. Before the broke away from the hug, Carter gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. Ollie blushed a bit and nodded. She waved at him as he got in his car and drove off.  
        Back at his house, all of the lights were off but his parent’s cars were home. He carefully walked inside and locked the door behind him. He quickly kicked off his shoes in the entryway and walked into the bathroom. Brushing his teeth and washing his face, Carter took his sleeping pills and then went to bed.  
        The next morning Carter woke up groggy and tired. Sleep had not come easy to him, even after he took another set of sleeping pills. He kept getting the sense that something was watching him sleep. He also kept waking up in the middle of the night to strange sounds around him, like a group of people were whispering to each other near by.  
        Ollie met him in the school parking lot with the coffee that he had asked for. Reading the expression on his face, Ollie simply handed over the coffee and walked to class with Carter in silence.  
        Around lunch, she finally got up the courage to talk to him about his house.  
        “What are you planning on doing?” She asked him.  
        “About what?” Carter said.  
        “Well, it’s clear that your house is haunted. Don’t you want to get rid of the ghost? Of the little girl? I mean, that is clearly the person who is tormenting you, right?”  
        “Well, I guess. But how the hell would I do that?” Carter asked, dipping his pizza into his side plate of ranch.  
        “I did some research last night about ghosts and how to get rid of them. I guess you have to pour salt on the body and then burn it to get the ghost to go away.”  
        “You looked up how to get rid of a ghost? Really?” Carter was kind of shocked that in the twelve or so hours that they had been apart, Ollie was already working on a plan to get rid of his ghost problem.  
        “Yes, I did. I want to make sure you stick around for a while. I like hanging out with you too.” At this, Carter and Ollie just smiled at each other for a minute. Carter was still amazed that Ollie didn’t think he was out of his mind and that she was even willing to help him get rid of what believed was a ghost. He could very well be going crazy.  
        “How do we burn her body? Isn’t she buried or something? And isn’t desecrating a grave illegal?”  
        “Desecrating a grave is like committing a murder” Ollie paused for a minute and Carter just cocked his head in curiosity. “It’s only illegal if you get caught, dummy.” Ollie smirked a little at her own joke.  
        “I’d need to do some more research about where she was buried, but then other than that it should be pretty easy. We could even go after the football game on Friday. It’ll be late enough that no one will be out and dark enough that no one will see us. It’ll take maybe an hour, two at most.”  
        Carter was in shock over the fact that he and Ollie were planning to dig up a grave and burn a body to get rid of a ghost that was haunting him. All while eating pizza in his school’s cafeteria. Carter chewed on a piece of pepperoni and thought it over. Yes, it would mean getting rid of the ghost, but what if they got caught? Or what if something went wrong, like they dug up the wrong grave and then got caught? Carter’s instinct was telling him that everything Ollie was suggesting was wrong and to not do it, but his gut was telling him to live on the edge a little and see what could happen.  
        Looking at Ollie and swallowing the piece of pizza in his mouth, Carter grinned a little at Ollie.  
        “Okay.” He said. “Lets plan this salt and burn. I’d like to get a good night sleep soon.”  
        Ollie looked at him and smiled, then took her laptop out of her bag and they both began their research into how to rid themselves of a ghost.  
        That day after school, instead of going back to Ollie’s house, Carter offered Ollie to come back to his.  
        “Just so you can see it,” he said. “I promise nothing weird will happen. It really only ever happens to just me. My parents haven’t said anything about it, so I guess the ghost or whatever just has a thing for me.”  
        “Sure,” Ollie said, “I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost.” She winked at him and then slid into the passenger seat of his Jetta.  
        “Uh, my mom might be home, but I think my dad is still at work. SO you may have to deal with her.”  
        “That’s okay. What’s her name?”  
        “You can just call her Mrs. Kashmir, or just Kaj. She goes by that more than anything else.”  
        “Okay, sounds good to me.”  
        They drove the rest of the way without talking to each other, and mainly listened to the radio. Many of the radio stations were advertising Christmas sales and one was already playing Christmas music. Carter pulled up in front of his house and turned the car off. Looking out the passenger window, Carter thought it looked like any other house from the outside. Single story, a pale pink color on the outside and a small awning to keep the rain off of the front door.  
        “Well,” Carter said, “here we are.” Ollie took a deep breath and then grabbed her backpack and opened the door.  
        “You don’t have to come in if you’re freaked out about the house. I mean, you do know more about it than I do.” Carter wanted Ollie to stay, but didn’t want to pressure her into it. He didn’t like being in the house alone and by the empty driveway, he knew that neither of his parents were home.  
        “You invited me over to keep you company, so let me keep you company.” Ollie said sternly. It was clear that she was nervous about the house, but Carter was glad that she was willing to stay with him, at least for a little while.  
        Carter unlocked the front door for Ollie and then lead them both into the dining room where they set their stuff down. Moving to the kitchen, Carter kept an eye on Ollie, who was sitting stiffly at the table.  
        “Do you want something to eat?” he asked her.  
        “What do you have?”  
        “Uh,” Carter looked in the fridge. It was in between paychecks so there wasn’t any food in the house at the moment. But there was peanut butter in the cupboard and jam in the fridge.  
        “I can make pb&j, but that’s about it.” Carter stated.  
        “Ha ha, that sounds great.” Ollie said. Carter relaxed a bit and started on their lunches while Ollie pulled out her laptop from her bag. She set it up on the table and began typing and clicking away. After a minute, she asked Carter what the Wi-Fi was for his house.  
        “It’ll be the one that says “Mom – This Is Our Wi-Fi” and the password is ‘ABCD1234’” Ollie just looked at Carter for a minute and then started laughing.  
        “I take it that your parents aren’t very tech savvy are they?”  
        “No, when my dad saw the name he laughed as well. He knows a little bit more than my mom, but not really a lot. I used to have to tinker with the internet all the time when I did online school. It would constantly be going out or just failing, so I had to learn how to fix the router all the time.”  
        “I’ll be sure to call you when one of my brothers knocks out the internet again then.” Ollie said, then turned back to her computer.  
        “It says here that ghosts also hate iron for some reason. I don’t know. Maybe you should start sleeping with a pipe or something, to keep the thing away from you. That might make a difference.”  
        “Yeah, I think I have some wrenches in the garage that are made of iron. I’ll have to check later. What else does it say?” Carter sat down next to Ollie and started eating a sandwich.  
        “It says that ghosts are most likely spirits that have unfinished business or don’t know that they are dead. Does that sound like your ghost?” Ollie turned to look at Carter.  
        “No, and don’t call it ‘my ghost.’ It seems more that the ghost is just angry for the sake of being angry. I didn’t even do anything.” Carter continued to eat his sandwich. Ollie picked hers off the plate and took a bite.  
        “Well, hopefully the salt and burn will get rid of the ghost for sure. But we need to figure out where the body is. That’s super important.” Ollie took a few more bites of her sandwich before going back to her computer. Carter noticed that the screen reflected off of her glasses. He was glad that Ollie was willing to stay and sit with him even though she knew his house was haunted.  
        Ollie turned to look at Carter and cocked her head a little bit in questioning. “What?” she asked, smiling a bit.  
        “Your glasses are all smudged and dirty.” Carter said, chuckling a bit.  
        “Oh, damn it.” Ollie removed her glasses and started wiping them off with the hem of her shirt. At that moment, Carter leaned in and placed a kiss on her lips. This time, however, he wasn’t doing it as a distraction. This time he was kissing her because he wanted to. Her lips were warm and they tasted slightly like peanut butter. Being this close to her, he could smell the faint scent of peaches on her. Soon, Ollie started kissing him back. She placed her glasses on the table and put a hand against Carter's face to hold him there. Carter flinched at the touch and pulled away a bit.  
        “What?” Ollie asked, her eyes wide.  
        “Your hands are really cold.” Carter said. Ollie quickly took her hands away from his face and folded them in her lap.  
        “Sorry, I’m always cold.” Carter took her hands in his and started rubbing them to warm them up.  
        “It’s fine. I’m always warm so it works out perfectly.” He just smiled a Ollie and looked at her. He liked looking at her without her glasses on, and for some reason Ollie kept them off. Carter leaned in again for another kiss, and Ollie leaned in with him until their lips touched. The moment they did, the lights went out in the kitchen and everything was dark.  
        “What the hell?” Ollie asked.  
        “Oh no” was all that Carter could say. He was shaking and still holding on to Ollie’s hands. He couldn’t see her even though she was right in front of him, but he could feel her fingers rub his own in nervousness.  
        In the pitch blackness, Carter felt something move around the table, around him and around Ollie.  
        “Carter, what’s going on? Is this the ghost?” from Ollie’s voice, it was clear that she was scared, but she kept holding on to Carter's hands, stroking them slightly as if to comfort herself. Carter could feel the breeze against his cheek as something went past him and around the table, then it came again, but faster this time.  
        Carter felt as though the entire room was spinning in the dark. The only thing that kept him sane was the feeling of Ollie’s hands against his.  
        “Carter, keep calm okay? We need to just relax. There is nothing really here, alright? There is nothing here that can hurt us.” Ollie was trying to talk over the sound of the room spinning, trying to calm herself down as well as Carter.  
        “Ha ha ha, your little friend is right Carter, I won’t hurt you,” The child-like voice was back and it seemed to be coming from every direction in the darkness. “I love you. I love playing with you. I wouldn’t hurt you. But I would hurt her!” Suddenly Ollie’s hands were ripped from his and Carter heard her scream. He stood up and reached out into the darkness, reaching for Ollie, trying to grab onto her, but there was nothing in front of him any more. Stumbling in the blackness, Carter felt the edge of the table and walked his way around it, feeling for Ollie.  
        “Ollie!” he called out, “Ollie, please answer me! Ollie where are you! Come back! Ollie please!” Carter yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping that Ollie would say something back. Then, as quickly as they had gone off, the lights were back on and the room was still again. Carter was breathing heavily, and spun around to where Ollie was sitting, but there was nothing there. The chair she had been sitting in was knocked over and her computer was on the floor, but other than that, there was no sign of her. Carter ran out of the kitchen and out the front door, looking up and down the street for some sign of her, but again there was nothing.  
        Carter turned back to the house and went inside. Staring down the long hallway that lead past the guest room, Carter took and deep breath and then ran down the hall and pushed the door open. Inside there was nothing, again. Nothing on the walls, nothing on the floor. Even the nights were out. Carter took out his phone and turned on the flashlight so he could look around. The room looked the exact same as it had when he had been in here before.  
        Just as he was about to leave, Carter noticed a piece of folded paper in the corner of the room. Sprinting to the corner of the room and then sprinting back out, Carter grabbed the paper and slammed the door shut. He walked back to the kitchen with the folded note in his hand. Carter slowly opened it and read what it said. In Ollie’s pretty cursive writing, the note read  
          
        CARTER! HELP! STUCK AND CAN’T GET OUT! GET RID OF GHOST! NOT MUCH TIME LEFT!  
          
And that was it. There was nothing else on the note for Carter to read. Carter sat down at the table and slowly started to sob. Why had this happened to him? Why her? What did this thing even want? Why didn’t it just take him? Was there any way of getting Ollie back?  
        For all of these questions, Carter knew that there was only one person that could answer them. He quickly grabbed his keys off of the rack, and ran outside and into his car. He had to find the brother.


End file.
